


Covet

by Lomonaaeren



Series: From Litha to Lammas 2020 [13]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Accidental Harem, Anal Sex, Angst, Bisexual Harry Potter, Drama, F/M, Humor, Light Bondage, M/M, Magically Powerful Harry Potter, Marriage of Convenience, Multi, Oblivious Harry, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Switch Harry Potter, Vaginal Sex, Wizarding Traditions (Harry Potter), light painplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-22
Updated: 2020-07-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:27:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25450864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: It turns out that, when various people begin asking Harry for legal and magical shelter, he has the power to marry them all as per an ancient Ministry law that says the conqueror of a Dark Lord can have multiple spouses. Harry knows the marriages are in name only, and it’s not like they require sex, just a magical oath. He thinks he’s doing very well at resisting temptation, not realizing what a temptation he is himself.
Relationships: Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy, Astoria Greengrass/Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter, Harry Potter/Blaise Zabini, Harry Potter/Zacharias Smith, Luna Lovegood/Harry Potter, Theodore Nott/Harry Potter
Series: From Litha to Lammas 2020 [13]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1795561
Comments: 166
Kudos: 1689
Collections: Zoya's HP Other





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is one of my “From Litha to Lammas” fics being posted between the summer solstice and the first of August this year. As you can see from the summary, this fic is not meant to be taken entirely seriously. It should have four parts.

“And I, Harry Potter, take you, Theodore Nott, as my lawfully joined husband for a year and a day. I promise to shelter you, to stand by your side, to offer you food and water as you need it, to share magic with you, to offer you the comfort of my shadow and my wand arm.”

Harry paused to take a breath. He knew that he’d gabbled the magical promise more than just said it, but he’d been so afraid that he’d forget it, he’d thought it best to rush through.

Besides, if the magic unfolding from the end of his wand was any sign, he’d done it correctly. The glittering green and golden ribbons danced in the air, then settled like a cloak around Theodore Nott’s shoulders as he knelt before Harry. They were outside, doing this at noon in the shadow of an oak on the property Harry had bought after the war, as per tradition.

Nott was looking up at Harry with complete trust as he finished the vow. When the ribbons settled, he crossed his arms in front of himself and bowed his head a little. His dark hair slumped across his face, much the way his shoulders had slumped when he first came to Harry’s house and asked Harry to invoke a marriage custom that hadn’t been used in almost four hundred years.

But his voice was strong and steady as he said, “And I, Theodore Nott, take you, Harry Potter, as my lawfully joined husband for a year and a day. I promise to trust you, to stand by your side, to accept food and water and shelter from your hand, to share magic with you, to offer you the comfort of my support and my body.”

Harry flushed when he heard the last promise, and he shook away visions that had no right to dance in his head. Nott had to promise that because that was what the words of the oath said, but—they wouldn’t be _sleeping_ together. Not really. This old custom didn’t require consummation. It had been used in lots of circumstances where one of the partners was too young or too old or the wrong gender for someone’s preference. It was meant as a protection from an unreasonable family member or untenable legal situation, and “the comfort of my body” could just mean fighting side-by-side, or the occasional hug.

Nott had reassured Harry of that again and again before Harry had been comfortable agreeing to the marriage. He would never want to sleep with someone less than fully willing.

Nott’s deep grey eyes glowed as he extended his hands, standing. Harry ringed them with more green and golden ribbons that simply sprouted from his wand without having to be called, and then coughed. Nott smiled.

“I believe the marriage is nearly complete,” said Hermione, the one witness they had to have as per the law. “You may—seal it.”

Harry heard the uncertainty in her voice, and sighed to himself. Hermione hadn’t approved of this at all, but she had to admit that there didn’t seem another solution likely to protect Nott from his Death Eater father. Per Nott family custom and no law actually prohibiting it, Belisarius Nott had the right to drag his son back home and lock him up in a room until he was twenty-five. From the way Theodore had described it, his father would kill him long before then.

And that made Harry ache with far more anger than the thought of marrying Theodore Nott did.

Nott was already moving forwards, his face set in a smile that Harry knew hid so much. Harry leaned in to meet him, one hand rising to gently cup his face as he kissed him.

He felt the marriage shudder and settle deep in his chest in a flowing wave of golden magic the minute their lips touched. Harry relaxed. Good, he wouldn’t have to subject Nott to a deep snog or—

Nott’s mouth opened. Harry gasped, and found their tongues touching without him being aware of how it had happened. He swallowed, let the kiss linger a moment to show Nott that he wasn’t rejecting him, and then moved backwards, clearing his throat a little.

“This is my husband,” he said to Hermione, making the formal introduction as he had to, “Theodore Nott sa’Potter.”

Hermione nodded with a quivering smile. “And good luck to you both,” she said, before half-bowing to Nott and then turning away. Harry watched her walk slowly, heavily, to the edge of the Apparition zone and then vanish.

Left alone with his new husband, Harry sighed and turned back to Nott, who was waiting patiently for him. “Nott, I—”

“Do you think you ought to call me that?”

Harry blinked and pushed his glasses up his nose. “The marriage must have let you keep your own name, because I was able to say it to Hermione,” he said, uncertain. Nott had told him that the ritual would keep him from saying the name at all if it didn’t take. Harry would either have had to say “Theodore Potter” or be stuck in one place with his mouth open.

“I mean,” Nott said, stepping closer and slipping his arm around Harry’s waist, which left Harry in one place with his brain gibbering, “you should speak to me as Theodore. We _are_ married, and it might not just be for a year and a day if my father renews his threats. I’m going to call you Harry.”

“Yes, of course.” Harry wondered if—Theodore, damn, that would take some getting used to—if he knew how husky his voice was. Probably some side-effect of the magical marriage, though. Harry knew Theodore hadn’t dated any blokes at school or since. “Come on, then, let’s go home.”

“I like the sound of that.” Theodore closed his eyes and let his head rest against Harry’s collarbone, indicating that he trusted Harry to Side-Along him completely.

Harry gently led Theodore along until they reached the same point where Hermione had Apparated, and took them to the refurbished Grimmauld Place. He had expanded it with the same charms that had been on the tent they’d been in at the Quidditch World Cup all those years ago, and there were now plenty of bedrooms, a huge garden, and even a separate kitchen for Harry to use, since Kreacher had a fit when he saw him cooking.

There was plenty of room so Theodore wouldn’t be disturbed by Harry’s presence. Or possible nightmares.

Or possible wanks over him, either.

*

 _When I set up the new bedrooms in the house,_ Harry thought as he stared at Blaise Zabini’s bowed head, _it wasn’t some kind of challenge to fate to fill them all up._

“How sure are you of this information?” he asked quietly, as he passed Zabini a cup of tea laced with brandy.

Zabini sipped at it and then groaned in appreciation. “Better than a Pepper-Up,” he said, sagging back against the chair behind him. “And pretty damn sure, Potter. The problem is that Umbridge caught me going through her files, and now she knows that I’m the Unspeakable who was assigned to watch your back in the Ministry.”

“Should you be telling me about that?”

“The mission’s ended. So I can talk about it.”

Harry nodded. “All right, Zabini, well, I owe you a debt. I’ll make sure that you have a place to stay that’s Unplottable and—”

“Do you think Umbridge’s wrath is going to disappear after a few days? Or weeks? Or months? Or that of her connections? She used all those connections to stay out of Azkaban after the war.” Zabini leaned forwards intently. “And she obviously has allies who want to work with her for the sake of watching you go down. I don’t know where an attack might come from any second.”

“I can give you shelter for that long.” Harry smiled at him.

He got back a flat look in return. “I want a stronger form of protection.”

“All right. Do you want me to cast the Fidelius on one of the Black properties and be the Secret-Keeper for you?”

“No. I want what you have with Theodore.”

It took Harry more seconds than it should have to figure out what he meant, because his mind was tangled with thoughts of separate bedrooms and the confusing fact that Zabini wasn’t running from his Death Eater father. As far as Harry knew, his father was dead. Then he realized what Zabini meant, and glared at him. “You can’t marry me. Or want to.”

“Yes, I can. I looked up all the laws before I came here. Just to refresh my memory, you understand, because I read them for the first time when I heard what Theodore was trying to do.” Zabini’s eyes shone a little. “Someone who’s conquered a Dark Lord can have more than one spouse, at least if they use the ritual you did with Theodore. Hell, Albus Dumbledore could have had a whole group of men sworn to him walking around the castle and sleeping in his bed, if he wanted.”

Harry sighed. “The first thing you ought to know is that Theodore and I don’t sleep together. I wouldn’t coerce him into that when I know that he didn’t choose to marry me of my own free will.”

Zabini sat in silence for a moment, as if digesting that. “You have separate bedrooms?” he asked.

Harry nodded. “And you would have one of your own if you wanted to stay here. Or you could have a bedroom in one of those Unplottable Black properties and stay here one night a week. The magical marriage’s laws say that we technically only need to spend that much time together. It was created in a time when someone might be out of the country a lot for a job or during a war.”

Zabini sipped the last of his brandy-laced tea and put down his cup. “Awfully eager to get rid of me, aren’t you?”

Harry frowned at him. “I know this situation can’t be pleasant for you, Zabini. I’m sure the last thing you wanted to do is come here, or ask _me_ for help. I’m just trying to make this as easy as I can for everybody.”

“You’re speaking to me as if I was Draco and had some sort of personal problem with you.” Zabini smiled at him. “I have no personal problem with you. Your defeating the Dark Lord is a nice bonus. I know you’ll protect me. I’ll take a bedroom here.”

Harry nodded. “Fine. Then I’ll ask my friend Ron to be our witness.”

“Why, if you hate this as much as you seem to? You can ask Theodore.”

Harry sighed at the tone in Zabini’s voice. “I don’t hate this, Zabini, and I don’t hate you. I just wish that things were different. That Umbridge wasn’t still in power and you didn’t have to run from her. That there was something I can do about Theodore’s father, when there’s _nothing._ ”

“Marrying him and giving him shelter isn’t nothing. It won’t be in my case, either.”

“Will marrying me cause you problems with the Unspeakables?”

“Why would it, when they assigned me to protect you at one point?” Zabini blinked.

“Some of them wanted me to _visit_ them in the Department of Mysteries after the war.” Harry clenched his jaw. He’d foolishly agreed because he’d felt bad about what the battle at the end of his fifth year must have done to some of the Unspeakables’ projects. “They told me that they were interested in the magic that had let me defeat Voldemort. And then I woke up on a table with three hours missing from my memory and straps being fastened around my wrists.”

Zabini’s eyes widened. “I—never knew that. What happened?”

“I never did get back those three missing hours. Hermione thinks they used a potion, not a Memory Charm.” Harry wondered for a second if he should be telling this to Zabini, but, well, the Unspeakables certainly already knew, and their magical marriage would include some protections against them spilling each other’s secrets when they signed the contract. “I told them to let me go, and they said they had to understand ‘what had happened.’ I broke free of the straps and destroyed the room they had me in.”

Zabini sat back with a thump, quite a trick when Harry hadn’t even noticed him rising to his feet. “That’s what happened to the Mind Room. It’s just a _hole_.”

“Probably. I never asked where they had me.”

“How did you break free, though?”

Harry shrugged. “Wandless magic.” He raised his eyebrows as he noted the shiver that ran through Zabini. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” On the other hand, if Zabini backed off, it would probably be better for both of them. Zabini wouldn’t have to be trapped in a marriage with someone who frightened him, and Harry...

Well, Zabini was fit in a way that appealed to Harry as much as Theodore’s desire to rely on him.

“I’m not.” Zabini cleared his throat. “Frightened, that is.” His voice sounded thick, the way Theodore’s had right after the marriage ceremony. Harry sighed and wondered if the magic could start working in anticipation before they even signed or swore something. “Is there anything else I should know before marrying you?”

“I promise that I’ll protect you,” Harry said quietly. “But I won’t put up with any nonsense about Muggles or blood traitors or Muggleborns. Almost all my friends are in the latter two categories, you know.”

“I don’t plan to give you that nonsense, Potter. It was never as important to me as it was to some of the other Slytherins anyway.”

Harry smiled a little sadly and held out his hand to Zabini over the table. “Then welcome to—I suppose we can call it an unconventional marriage? But I know that you’re doing it for a good reason.”

Zabini shook Harry’s hand and held on for a moment. Harry cursed himself for reading too much into that, or the way that Zabini’s fingers slid across his palm for a moment.

He had to give up this foolish hope that his spouses were marrying him out of desire. He knew they weren’t, and it would dishonor them far more than following this custom did if he acted like he had the right to sleep with them, touch them, kiss them, or any of that.

*

“And I, Blaise Zabini, take you, Harry Potter, as my lawfully joined husband for a year and a day. I promise to trust you, to stand by your side, to accept food and water and shelter from your hand, to share magic with you, to offer you the comfort of my support and my body.”

 _Does he have to_ purr _like that?_ Harry thought, faintly despairing, but then told himself not to hold Blaise’s natural tone of voice against him. He did look beautiful like this, standing up and reaching for Harry to give him the kiss.

But that was none of Harry’s business, either.

“I believe the marriage is nearly complete,” Ron said in a strangled voice. He had his hand over his face and was peering out around his fingers with one eye. He closed it again the minute Harry glanced at him. “You may seal it.”

Harry nodded and leaned in. This time, he was determined that there wouldn’t be a repeat of the snog he’d accidentally given Theodore. He didn’t want to reject Blaise, but at the same time, he did want to set up certain boundaries. Over the past week as they’d prepared for the wedding, he’d learned about Blaise’s mother and the husbands she’d almost certainly killed.

He didn’t want to make Blaise think Harry believed he was a seducer or anything like that, just because of his mother.

Once again, Harry’s good intentions didn’t win the day. Blaise’s mouth opened the minute their lips touched, so Harry fell into the snog without a chance to even discreetly pull back. It would have disrupted the marriage kiss if he had. At least Blaise was making satisfied noises under his breath, so Harry supposed it couldn’t be all that terrible.

He turned around with his hand on Blaise’s shoulder to the applause. Theodore was standing next to Ron and clapping fervently, his face bright rosy red in the sunshine. Harry made a mental note to teach Theodore more Sunblocking Charms.

Somewhat to Harry’s surprise, Theodore had been enthusiastic about the idea of Harry marrying Blaise. Well, Theodore had to stay in the house a lot because his father was searching to catch him outside, and Blaise would be home whenever he wasn’t at work for much the same reason. Theodore must be lonely, Harry thought, and he _had_ said Blaise was one of his friends from school. They could entertain each other while Harry worked with the Aurors.

“This is my husband,” Harry told him and Ron, “Blaise Zabini sa’Potter.”

Theodore clapped harder, and Blaise shivered a little next to Harry. Harry made another mental note, this one to have Kreacher add some anti-disease potions to Blaise’s tea. He seemed to be getting a cold.

“Welcome to the family,” Theodore said, and stepped forwards to shake Blaise’s hand. Then he leaned in to whisper into his ear. Harry turned firmly away and told himself being jealous was stupid.

He met Ron’s eyes, and Ron shook his head at him. “Really, mate? Another one?”

“They need help,” Harry said. He knew he sounded defensive, but, well. There were few defenses for just collecting beautiful men like sweets, he supposed. “And I’m the only person available to give it to them.”

“I’m not questioning that,” Ron said. “I just wonder how many more you’re going to end up with.”

Harry laughed. “Come _on_ , Ron. How many Slytherins in need of shelter from oppressive parents or stupid government ministers can there be?”

*

“I’m sorry, but I can’t do it.”

Malfoy sat back, his eyes closed, looking devastated. His wife, Astoria—Malfoy, Harry supposed her name was now—gave him a kind look and a pat on the arm, and turned towards Harry with far more calm than he’d expected. “Why not?”

“You’re already married.” Harry was grateful for the absolute excuse, and that he knew it. But, after all, he’d studied the marriage ceremony in deep detail before he’d married Theodore. “We can’t do the kind of marriage you’re asking for because it would interfere with your own bond. And, honestly? I think that you’re exaggerating the danger from Mr. and Mrs. Malfoy.”

Astoria frowned prettily. “I’m sorry if we gave you the impression that we’re in danger. We’re not. Not the way that Theodore and Blaise were.”

“Okay,” Harry said. “Then why come to me?”

“Because this is a way to maintain respectability while still leaving their house.” Astoria pushed a curl of blonde hair behind her ear, and Harry found his eyes following it. _Bloody hell, I need to get laid._ “I’m tired of them telling me, over and over, that I like Muggles too much just because I think they shouldn’t all be exterminated. But it’s traditional for a couple in the first two years of marriage to live with one set or the other of their parents, and my parents don’t have the room. This lets us avoid scandal.”

“ _How_ , though?” Harry demanded. “If you marry me—if that was even possible, which I told you why it’s not—then everyone will assume that the Malfoys threatened you somehow. That would make a bigger scandal than just living apart from them.”

“Not if we announce the _true_ reason for the marriage,” Astoria said, and smiled.

“Yes,” Malfoy said, opening his eyes and at least looking a little less like a drowning starfish. Harry actually wished he would go back to that, with perhaps less emphasis on the “drowning.” Now the angle he was sitting at was making Harry notice that he’d lost some of the pointiness that used to haunt his features. “Which is that we’re honoring the debt the Malfoy family owes you and living under your protection for a year to show that all is truly reconciled.”

“You can’t.”

“Why not?” Malfoy drew himself up. “I didn’t think you thought the debt was _that_ deep, Potter.”

“No, I don’t.” Harry kept his voice calm with an effort, because all he could hear inside his head was Ron laughing hysterically at him. “Listen to me. You can’t use the bond Theodore and Blaise promised me because you have an existing marriage bond. They were only able to make the promises they chose because they didn’t have a prior spouse who would demand their loyalty. You can’t—”

“There’s a similar marriage ceremony,” Astoria said with a shrug of her shoulders that made them look very delicate. “We’ll do that one.”

Harry very carefully did not scream. “I don’t want to interfere in your marriage.”

“You won’t.” Malfoy nodded at him. “We would invite you into our bond for a year and a day as an equal partner. That means we would all give each other the same loyalty and promises of shelter and so on.”

Harry frowned at him. “Then why would you be able to spin it to the public as sheltering under my hand, the way you put it when you arrived?”

Malfoy smiled. That smile was also a lot more attractive than it used to be, Harry thought in despair. “Because of the consequences of you defeating a Dark Lord. We would make _you_ promises of shelter if you ever needed it, in the form of support and loyalty. But you would be giving _us_ the shelter of your home, and make it clear that you really are our Lord.”

“Oh, no.” Harry put up his hands. “We are not doing _that_ shit.”

“I am going to ask that not swear in front of our wife, Harry.”

Harry tried desperately to ignore the feeling that he was on top of a mudslide rolling downhill and his only chance was to ride it. “Listen. Lots of people after the war wanted me to take up the position of a Lord. A magical one, not one that rules by blood, since there aren’t any more of those. I refused it for the same reasons Professor Dumbledore did.”

Astoria frowned a little. “I’m not aware of those reasons.”

“I don’t want to rule people, I don’t think I’m better than anyone else, and I don’t think magical power makes you a fit candidate to hold the political kind.”

Astoria blinked rapidly. Harry felt a little sorry for overwhelming her, the way he apparently had, but it would be best if she gave up this silly idea now.

Draco didn’t appear inspired to give up this silly idea. “Well, Dumbledore had a reason to refuse, didn’t he? We all know since Rita Skeeter’s book came out that people would have found out his past with Grindelwald if he was a public figure. And everyone knew he was going to be the next Headmaster of Hogwarts. He obviously wanted that position more. But _you’re_ not in line for anything.”

“Head Auror, is what Kingsley is telling me,” Harry said coolly.

“Yes, but not right away. You’ve got time to devote to your spouses.”

Harry sighed. “I don’t know how the ceremony to marry a couple is different than the ceremony to marry a single person, but Theodore and Blaise have their own lives. Their own rooms.”

“They do?”

Draco’s astonishment was a little irritating. Harry frowned at him. “I _told_ you, I don’t want to rule people. And the ceremony doesn’t require that we sleep together. That’s why I chose it. You think I wanted to _rape_ people?”

“No. No, of course not.” Draco was already sitting back in his chair in a nonchalant fashion. “But that means that you don’t have to object to marrying us, do you? There _is_ a ceremony that will do it. And you won’t interfere in our bond in any way.”

There was a strange tone in his voice when he said that, and Harry opened his mouth to ask about it. But Astoria intervened, leaning forwards across the kitchen table again.

“Please, Harry. It will mean so much to us. To have a place that’s our own, away from our in-laws, without people questioning it. And to have the protection of someone powerful in society. That’ll get rid of the last of the taint the Malfoy name carries from the war.”

“And it can pay back the debt we owe,” Draco added.

Harry glared at him. “You owe me _nothing._ When I testified at your trials, I was paying back the life-debt I owed your mother. And you, from the Manor.”

“You saved my life in the Room of Hidden Things. You kept me and my father out of prison.” Draco’s face was somber. “Excuse me for thinking that we might owe you a little more.”

“Please, Harry.” Astoria leaned forwards to slide a finger up the back of his hand.

It was intriguing in a way it shouldn’t have been. Harry consoled himself with the thought that he had just stayed in his bedroom during the nights, wanking sometimes over Theodore and sometimes over Blaise, and he could add a couple to the rotation in his head if he had to.

Besides, they had each other, so there wasn’t going to be any of the weirdness there sometimes was in the morning when Theodore and Blaise wandered down the corridor shirtless and lingered to talk with Harry. (Why they didn’t want to use the bathrooms attached to their bedrooms, Harry didn’t understand, but those _were_ smaller than the one in the corridor).

“All right,” he said. “I’ll do it.”

*

“What are _you_ doing here, George? Ron was supposed to be my witness.”

“Every time Ron thought about you marrying Malfoy, he laughed so hard that he couldn’t get off the floor,” George said cheerfully. He nodded to Draco and Astoria, both standing behind Harry in silver robes. “No offense, Malfoy, Malfoy. I promise that I’m not going to play any pranks and mess up the ceremony.”

Draco folded his arms. “And it didn’t make _you_ laugh so hard you couldn’t get off the floor?”

“No. Some of the laughter went out of my life when my twin died.”

Draco flushed and didn’t seem to know what to say. Harry took his arm and gently steered him into the middle of the garden. They’d chosen to use the garden at Grimmauld Place for this particular bonding, since Draco was part of the Black family already and Astoria semi-related to him through their prior marriage.

Theodore and Blaise had thoroughly approved the choice, and also Harry’s decision to marry Draco and Astoria. Harry could only suppose they were looking forward to even _more_ company. Now they stood off to the left side of the garden in the same dark robes they’d married him in, talking softly.

Harry still wondered how in the world this had come to be his life, and he would have liked a few days to pause and sort out the chaos in his head. Unfortunately, there was no time for that, what with a case in the Auror Division that had taken all his time and then this Saturday needing to be the wedding. Ceremonies like this could only be held on the day—not the evening—of the full moon.

“You look dashing,” Draco said in an undertone to Harry as Harry gently positioned him on the left side of the basalt boulder in the middle of the garden and then went back to fetch Astoria.

Harry smiled uncomfortably back at him, not sure what to say himself. He’d had to wear special robes for this ceremony, while with the others, it hadn’t mattered. Harry had got married in his Auror robes for those. Why not? They were comfortable, and if Theodore’s father or Umbridge’s people had tried to disrupt the wedding, he would have been ready for battle.

On the other hand, _this_ time he wore green robes with a high silver color. Harry thought they looked entirely too Slytherin.

Especially since they had little silver snakes all down the panels. Apparently that was for his Parseltongue and the Dark Lord he’d defeated.

Harry didn’t want a reminder of Voldemort at his bloody wedding, but he’d been overruled, by Theodore, Blaise, and Astoria all three together. Besides, he supposed being a third wedding didn’t make it so special.

But from the radiant glow in Astoria’s eyes as she beamed up at him, and Harry swept her over the ground to the right side of the basalt boulder, it might be her first. Harry kept his shake of his head to himself, and assumed the position in front of the boulder, completing the third point of the triangle. He nodded to George.

George took a spot off to the side where all three of them could see him without craning their necks, and cleared his throat officiously. Harry eyed him and tried to convey Auror-like determination to kill him if he messed this up.

Luckily, George must have studied the wording of the ritual. Maybe he’d just wanted to be here to see Harry marrying two Malfoys, Harry thought. “This rite is for the protection of a married man and woman under the hand of the conqueror,” George said in a singsong tone. The smirk tugging at his lips said that he found this more amusing than messing things up, and Harry relaxed a little. “Who comes here to accept his protection?”

“Draco Malfoy, husband to Astoria Malfoy, petitioner.”

“Astoria Malfoy, wife to Draco Malfoy, petitioner.”

George nodded and turned a little so that he was facing Harry more than the others. “The conqueror must accept them into his protection and set the terms of that protection. Who accepts them, and what are the terms?”

“Harry Potter, conqueror of the Dark Lord, accepts these petitions.” Harry cleared his throat. The wording of this particular rite was so bloody pretentious.

But Astoria’s glowing eyes were still uplifted to him, and Draco looked the least uncomfortable that Harry had seen him since he’d walked in to find them already sitting in his kitchen (bloody Kreacher and his fondness for Black descendants). Maybe he really did feel that his family owed those debts.

“For the term of a year and a day,” Harry said clearly, sweeping his eyes over Draco, Astoria, Theodore, and Blaise—who was leaning forwards like a hunting hound, how strange—and then George, “I promise to give the petitioners the shelter of my roof, my hand, and my power. I promise to give them food and water as necessary. I promise to protect them from their enemies and take them to my heart.” Harry took a deep breath and spoke the words he hated most. “I promise to act as their lord.”

Astoria spoke then, sinking into a curtsey that made the silver robes spread out with a rustle around her. Harry kept his gaze firmly on the top of her golden head, forbidding himself sternly to look lower. “I, Astoria Malfoy, promise to give my lord the shelter of my heart, my support, and my loyalty for the term of a year and a day. I welcome him to my bond with my husband, Draco Malfoy, and hold him equal to Draco, my second husband. May our bond prosper.”

Draco bowed as low as Astoria had curtsied, his silver robes forming a shining trail behind him. Harry had wondered why they seemed to have so much extra material in them; now he understood. “I, Draco Malfoy, promise to give my lord the shelter of my heart, my support, and my loyalty for the term of a year and a day. I welcome him to my bond with my wife, Astoria Malfoy, and hold him equal to Astoria, my second spouse. May our bond shine.”

Magic erupted out of the air around them, and Harry relaxed. Everyone had to be sincere and trusting in the potential of the bond, or this wouldn’t have worked. But now they were being showered by softly glowing snowflakes that turned gold the moment they hit the ground, and piled up on his head and arms like gentle touches from hands.

It had worked.

Astoria was moving forwards with her face lifted, and Harry bent down and kissed her. To his immense relief, she didn’t try to make it a snog like Blaise and Theodore had. She did smile as though he had granted her a crown when it was done, though.

Kissing Draco was more awkward, or at least Harry experienced it that way. He didn’t snog, either, but he seemed disappointed when Harry stepped back after the kiss was done, which made Harry wonder what he had done wrong. He squeezed Draco’s hand and looked at him in concern.

Draco smiled, then, the shadow vanishing from his face. “I’m all right,” he mouthed, and Harry nodded.

Then Harry got a big lungful of air and turned towards Theodore and Blaise, who were smiling, and George, who was smirking. (After looking at their faces, Harry was never again going to doubt that he knew the difference between those two expressions). “May I present my spouses, Draco Malfoy Potter and Astoria Malfoy Potter.”

“And may we present our spouse,” Astoria said, “Harry Potter Malfoy.”

Harry blinked at her. He’d thought Draco and her were supposed to say that together.

“May we present our lord,” Draco continued, “Harry Potter Malfoy.”

Harry glared at him, but Draco just raised his eyebrows a little, utterly unimpressed. Harry sighed. It was within the acceptable parameters of the ceremony, even if it annoyed him.

And it was reassuring to know that Draco and Astoria didn’t hold him in awe or anything. He couldn’t have tolerated that.

George came up to shake his hand and muttered in an undervoice as Theodore and Blaise came up to whisper with Draco and Astoria in some sort of Slytherin reunion, “So, are there going to be any more marriages?”

“No more Slytherins,” Harry said firmly.

“Not what I asked.”

Harry scowled at him. “I have a _full house._ ”

_Of lovely spouses I cannot touch._

And he did believe that. He really did.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am having a blast with this. I hope you are, too.

“Well, at least he’s a Hufflepuff and not a Slytherin.”

Theodore spoke words that Harry wouldn’t admit he’d been thinking as he stared at Zacharias Smith, slumped over the kitchen table and a cup that Harry hadn’t bothered putting tea in. Smith needed brandy after the tale he’d blurted out.

And the request he’d made.

Harry stared at the ceiling. _I’ve had more discussions here about marriage than I have about food. For fuck’s sake, I only made the decision to marry Theodore a fortnight ago!_

Harry turned back to Smith. “You admit that it was your fault that you ventured into Knockturn Alley by yourself and tried to raid Borgin and Burke’s to get this artifact you say was stolen from your ancestor back,” he said quietly.

He could have told Smith something about the real fate of Hufflepuff’s Cup, but he didn’t think he should. If this was going to end up in another ridiculous marriage, it would be just as well to have peace between them.

Smith nodded. “But I promise that’s all I did, Potter! I got to the shop and I noticed what I thought was an Auror in front of it. There shouldn’t have been.”

“How do _you_ know that, Smith?” The git wasn’t an Auror.

Smith raised his eyebrows, managing to look supercilious despite the way that the rain had plastered his hair to his forehead. (That was a word Draco had taught Harry, although Harry didn’t think he was ready to start inserting it into conversation yet). “I have my sources.” But then he lowered his head and seemed to sink back into the reality of what had happened to him. “I honestly didn’t do anything! I paused down the street and stood in a doorway to watch the bloke.”

“And he turned towards you,” Theodore prompted. They’d heard this story already, but it hadn’t taken much more than a few glances for Harry and Theodore to agree that they were going to hear it again, and Smith was going to talk in detail about it this time.

Harry wanted to be worried about how well he communicated with Theodore, better than he did with any of the others, but he’d written a letter about that to Hermione, and she’d sent back a book on marital communication and how it _should_ be excellent. So right now, he was trying not to worry about it.

“Yes.” Smith swallowed. “And he had a dog’s head.”

“You’re not talking about someone who’s embraced the werewolf transformation,” Theodore said. His tone was dark in a way that made Harry wonder if he should have a talk with Theodore about respecting people under a deadly curse, but—well, he remembered Fenrir Greyback, too.

Smith shook his head. “I know what they look like.” His voice had a hollow core, and briefly, his blue eyes locked with Harry’s. Harry remembered with a jolt of empathy that Smith had been at Hogwarts during the attack by the Death Eaters in sixth year _and_ the Battle of Hogwarts. “This was an honest-to-Merlin _dog’s head._ Brown fur down to the neck, big wet nose, huge furry eyebrows, the lot. And he took a deep sniff and started walking towards me.”

“He smelled you through the rain?” Harry asked. He was getting to ask the questions now, along with Theodore, that they hadn’t managed the first time when Smith had practically beaten down the door of Grimmauld Place, gabbling with fear.

Smith shuddered. “Yes. And he started towards me. I turned around and ran. I thought a freak like that wouldn’t dare follow me out of Knockturn Alley—what’s wrong, Potter?”

Harry glanced away and concentrated on not making his muscles tense up. Theodore’s hand on his shoulder helped. “I just don’t like the word ‘freak,’ Smith. That’s all.”

“I’ll make sure not to use it around you, then.” Smith’s smile was fleeting. “I got into Diagon Alley and looked over my shoulder, and he was _still_ there. And he sniffed, loud enough that I could hear it, and told me he had my scent, and he was going to follow me ‘over hill and dale and to my den,’ so that he could destroy me for daring to approach his employer’s shop with intent to rob the place.” Smith shut his eyes and shuddered all over.

“And he followed you here,” Harry said.

“I—I think so. What?” Smith added as Harry took up his wand and stalked towards the edge of the kitchen.

“I can feel him through the wards,” Harry murmured. He was sure it was the creature Smith had talked about, although he’d never felt anything like this combination of grease and corruption before. The likelihood of some other creature he’d never felt before showing up right after Smith made his way to Grimmauld Place was too unlikely. “I’ll get rid of him.”

“If you can. You know why I came here, Potter.”

Harry paused and turned to look over his shoulder. Smith was staring at him with eyes that still looked too wide, but his hands had relaxed on the table and were no longer clenched around the brandy cup.

Harry sighed. “I do.”

“Will you grant it to me?”

Smith sounded formal now. Harry just hoped he didn’t stand up and start bowing or something. From Smith, who had always been a git to him, if at a lower level than Draco, it would have been too weird.

“Unless you have some intention of hurting my other spouses or telling me off for blood politics that are none of your business, then yes,” Harry said.

Smith sank back into his chair and bowed his head in a motion that looked graceful despite the tremble racing through his body. “Thank you, my lord.”

“Oh, fuck off,” Harry snapped, and stepped outside to the sound of Smith’s snicker.

*

The dog-headed man was indeed waiting by the edge of the wards, which extended down over the doorstep. He stopped sniffing about when he saw Harry come out and stared towards him, although the spells meant he couldn’t see Harry until Harry willingly created a tiny hole in them, at head-height.

The man’s hands clenched and unclenched. Harry could see that they had short fingers, more like a dog’s toes, and thick nails. “My prey is here,” said the voice, as thick as the fingers, and making it sound like the creature was choking on a chicken bone. “Give him to me.”

“He didn’t actually do anything,” Harry pointed out. “Why did you follow him here?”

“He intended to rob my master’s shop. He is my prey. Give him to me.”

“No,” Harry said, his resolve solidifying. He was pretty sure he knew what this man was now. Not a new kind of creature, but a human—maybe even another thief—cursed with partial human Transfiguration and the undying desire to hunt down thieves. “You are to leave here and not come back.”

“You cannot protect him, Dark-Slayer.”

Harry set his feet and closed the hole in the wards with a small slash of his wand. Beyond the defenses, the dog-man backed up and began to glow. Harry knew he would try to tear through the wards. Someone who had been Transfigured this way could sometimes manage it, since wards were mostly directed at stopping wizards, witches, and creatures like goblins that actually existed.

But Harry had his own weapons.

The dog-man charged the wards with a roar, and Harry let him tear at the place that had been weakened by the hole until he got a hand-paw through. Then Harry called up all his magic through his skin at once, and flared it around him like a corona.

The dog-man screamed as the magic burned his thick fingers. He staggered backwards, burning, blowing on it and then rolling over on the ground to try and extinguish the flames. There was no way that he could, Harry knew with grim satisfaction. Those flames would burn until _Harry’s_ will put them out.

When he heard the screams get desperate, Harry doused the flames with a jerk of his head and murmured, “You will leave my new husband alone.”

The dog-man was getting back to his feet, but he paused on all fours with his head hanging down, so Harry couldn’t see his face. His thick voice said, “Husband.”

“Yes.” Harry thought Smith and Theodore were watching him through the door, but he couldn’t afford to turn around and look at the expressions on their faces. All his focus needed to remain on the creature in front of him, who he felt sorry for, but who was twisted by Dark magic to attack again and again. “I will be marrying him tomorrow in the ceremony that says the conqueror of a Dark Lord can claim multiple spouses.”

The dog-man sat back on his knees, which looked strangely like a mixture of a human gesture and sitting on his haunches. He stared up at Harry and lolled his tongue out, which mangled his words further. But Harry thought he heard him say, “Conqueror of a Dark Lord.”

Harry nodded shortly.

The dog-man stood up, bowed his head, and then turned and walked away to the middle of the street. There, he Apparated. Harry still remained in the door for five minutes with his wand drawn before he shut it and turned back around.

Theodore was standing there looking as satisfied as he did when Harry stared at his bare chest in the mornings in the corridors. (Theodore had odd standards). Smith…

Smith was staring at Harry with a worshipful expression that made Harry cough uncomfortably and glance the other way.

“It may be that they’ll back down now that they realize you’re under my protection, Smith,” Harry said. “Do you want to go through with the marriage after all? We could wait and see if they actually renew their threats.”

“Of course I want to marry you.”

Harry turned back with a frown. “What do you mean, ‘of course?’”

Smith swallowed and glanced around the visible rooms of Grimmauld Place as if all the furniture had rearranged itself and he wanted to memorize the new positions. “I don’t know how much you know about my family.”

Harry shook his head. “That you’re related to Helga Hufflepuff. That’s all.”

“If we’re going to have a family discussion, we should go in the kitchen where we’ll be more comfortable,” Theodore said, and herded them back down the stairs with a sharp clap.

Once they were back in the kitchen and sitting down at the table, Smith swallowed half his tea and muttered, “Yeah, we’re related to Helga Hufflepuff. And we’re _huge._ I mean, half the families on the Continent are related to us one way or the other, and a bunch of families here. And my family branch is always trying to do something to prove that it’s better than the others. We were supposed to be perfect as kids, my cousins and I. I’m my parents’ only child, which makes it worse. I had to be the best at Charms, the best at Herbology, the best Hufflepuff, the most loyal. It was insane. Contests and competitions and all that sort of thing.”

“So that’s why you were in Knockturn Alley looking for this artifact that your family lost,” Harry said softly.

Smith glanced up, startled, then nodded. “Yeah, it would have set me above some of my cousins for at least six months.”

“All right. But what does that have to do with me? Or marrying me temporarily?”

“You stood up to that creature for me.” Smith’s hands were shaking, and he had to put down his teacup. “No one’s ever done that. Not just because I’m me and I asked them for help. I mean, Professor Sprout was pretty kind, but she would have done that for _every_ Hufflepuff.”

Harry shifted uneasily. The worshipful look was starting to creep back into Smith’s eyes. “I would have done that for anyone who came to me for help, too.”

“But it still didn’t have anything to do with my family or my heritage or my House. Just because you’re you.” Smith leaned across the table and linked his fingers together with Harry’s. “I want to marry the man who can do that. Even if I just spend a year and a day under your protection, I think I’ll learn a lot more about what a good marriage looks like than I ever would otherwise.”

Harry cast a desperate glance at Theodore for help. He thought Theodore might say no. Other than Smith being a pure-blood, it seemed unlikely Harry’s Slytherin spouses would have any connection to him. And it sounded like Smith’s family had set him up as a git to _everyone,_ not just Harry.

Theodore smiled at Harry and mouthed something that looked like, “He’s in.”

Harry sighed and glanced at Smith. “Yes, all right, you can marry me. But,” he continued hastily past the joy that had spilled across Smith’s features, “no acting like the prat you did in Hogwarts. I don’t care _what_ the temptation is.”

“You don’t need to worry about that.” Smith’s voice was husky, his eyes locked on Harry’s face as if he wanted to memorize it. “I want this.”

“All right, Smith—”

“Call me Zach.”

Harry hesitated. “Not Zacharias?”

Smith gulped and shook his head. “Everyone in my family called me Zacharias because Merlin forbid we be _informal._ And then I made everyone at school do it, too. I always thought that if I had friends or a loving family someday, I wanted them to call me Zach.”

Theodore beamed the harder. Harry tried to divide his face between glaring at him and smiling at Zach, but he had the impression it didn’t work, so he settled for the smile and the pat on Zach’s shoulder.

“I’ll give you what you need,” he said.

Zach took a breath that sounded as if it was on the edge of a sob, held still, and then nodded. “Thank you.”

*

For some reason, Luna had wanted to attend his wedding with Zach, a simple ceremony that echoed the ones he’d had with Theodore and Blaise. Harry had said that of course she could. She wasn’t his witness—Hermione had chosen that role, after she had cornered him, shaken him, and asked what the fuck he was thinking—but she was welcome.

Luna showed up in the garden of Grimmauld Place with dazzling sky-blue robes that were so bright they made Harry’s eyes water. She smiled at him, and Harry smiled back.

And then she marched towards him when the ceremony was done and he had exchanged a delicate kiss with Zach that had promise in it, and Harry felt a faint twinge of dread.

“Harry. It was a lovely wedding.”

“Thanks, Luna.” Harry glanced at her robes and had to wince away again. “How did you get your robes that bright?”

Luna beamed up at him, reminding him of Astoria for a second. “Aren’t they wonderful? I asked some spiders from Hogwarts to come to my house and interact with a recording of a Heliopath’s light for half an hour each day, and this is what they spun.” She paused. “You know, I didn’t have many friends growing up.”

“I know,” Harry said. “I wish I could have known you then and helped you.”

Luna shook her head. “We can’t go back in time and do anything about it, so it doesn’t make sense for you to worry,” she said. “But I was just thinking that it would be great if we could do something about that in the future.”

Harry blinked. “What do you mean?”

“You live in a big house with lots of people,” Luna said. “I would never be lonely if I lived with you. And if I had the Black money and the Potter money, I could go on explorations that I don’t now.”

“I’m happy to pay for anything you need,” Harry said, taking her hands. He was madly aware that from the other side of the garden, Zach and Hermione and _everyone else_ was watching. But he didn’t drop Luna’s hands. It wouldn’t be fair. “And you can visit whenever you want. But you don’t need to do any more than that, Luna. I don’t want you to think like that.”

“I’m also thinking I’d like a husband and lots of sex,” Luna said.

Harry choked so hard that he felt as though someone had shoved a block of ice down his throat. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hermione drawing her wand and Blaise stalking towards him with a murderous look on his face. Harry waved his hand, choked, tried to say something, choked some more, and coughed.

“Did I say something wrong?” Luna asked. “Did you think I was looking for a wife instead?”

Harry at last managed to get his breathing and talking under control, and shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong, Luna,” he said, and he absolutely believed it and was able to say it. “But I’m not having sex with my spouses, you know.”

“Isn’t that sort of a waste?”

Luckily, at this point Harry had braced himself a little—the way he should have when he was having a discussion about his marriages with _Luna_ , he thought, so he only had himself to blame—and he choked for two seconds. Then he said, “They married me because they needed protection, Luna. Not because they were attracted to me. Draco and Astoria are actually already married to each other. None of them married me for sex.”

There was a noise behind him, and Luna’s eyes darted over his shoulder. Harry turned his head in suspicion, but found Blaise staring up at the sky. Harry frowned at him. If he had come over here to make fun of Luna, then they would be having _words._

But Luna didn’t seem distressed, so hopefully whatever expression Blaise had had before that one hadn’t upset her. Harry turned back around. “They didn’t,” he repeated firmly.

“Oh.” Luna seemed to consider for a second, her hands twitching in the cuffs of her blindingly bright robes. Then she smiled. “But that doesn’t mean _I_ couldn’t.”

Harry didn’t put his hand over his face, but it was a close thing. He said, “Luna, I couldn’t do that to you.”

“Marry me and have lots of sex? Why not? Do you not think I’m pretty?”

This time, from the sound, Blaise was the one who had choked. Harry slid his hands into his robe pockets and forced himself to contemplate Luna’s face and not the sky. “Of course I do,” he said, gently. “But we’re friends. I haven’t thought of marrying you. And I don’t have sex with my other spouses. It—wouldn’t be fair.” He thought that was an argument that might appeal to Luna.

“Why not?”

 _Okay, maybe not._ “I mean, it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of your desire to live in a house and have a lot of friends.”

“But I’m the one who proposed it to you. So how would it be taking advantage of me?”

“That’s what we’d all like to know,” Blaise muttered behind him.

Harry decided, reluctantly, that that didn’t sound _quite_ like Blaise was making fun of Luna, and so not quite as though it was an excuse to abandon the conversation. He made his face as calm as he could. “I know that you aren’t thinking of marrying me because you’re madly in love with me,” he said. _Neither did anyone else._ And yes, there was a slight tinge of bitterness to that thought. “So it wouldn’t be fair to take advantage of things I’m just as willing to give you without that. You can live at Grimmauld Place with us and have all the money you need.”

“I’d like sex, too, though.”

“But it wasn’t the first thing you mentioned.”

“Oh. I was just going alphabetically, you know. Friends, money, sex.”

“Of course you were,” Harry muttered, feeling a rush of affection fill him. That was so _Luna._ “Well, I haven’t thought of having sex with you, Luna.”

Two chokes behind him this time. Harry glanced over his shoulder just to make sure that he could identify his spouses by the noises they made. Yes, Theodore and Zach. Zach’s eyes in particular were wider than they should have been. Harry wondered if he should be worried about him.

“Not before now,” Luna said. “What about now?”

Harry looked at her, and despite himself, pictured her soft pale hair wrapped around his hands as he knelt down between her legs, as he opened his mouth to press it against the soft flesh there, as she touched—

And he was having an inappropriate reaction in a public place, as Hermione probably would have called it. Harry coughed and averted his eyes. It was a little strange that none of his spouses had said anything, but they weren’t used to Luna the way he was. Probably they were too stunned to speak.

“So you can see it now,” Luna said happily.

“Er,” said Harry.

“So can we get married?”

Harry shook his head. “Luna, because of the way that I’ve married other people, I would have to take you under my protection in a similar marriage ceremony. It couldn’t be a traditional wedding.”

“Why is that a problem?”

“You don’t need my protection that way.”

“But I’d like it.”

Harry looked at her sharply. “Do you need it? Is someone teasing you again?”

“No,” Luna said in a patient voice. “I said I’d _like_ it.”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t marry you just because of what you’ve said.”

Luna beamed at him. “That’s okay. I have other arguments.”

*

And sure enough, a few days later, still not entirely sure how she’d done it, Harry found himself standing in the garden of Grimmauld Place with his hands in Luna’s, while he spoke the words that meant he was taking his first solo bride—

(God, that sounded _terrible_ ).

—under his protection. Luna smiled at him the whole time, even if she also interrupted the ceremonial words to tell him that she thought he needed a little more stubble on his chin. Then she returned to them, and amazingly, it went off without a hitch. Harry shook his head. Perhaps even the words of the rite recognized that when you dealt with Luna, you just had to accept some things.

His spouses hadn’t raised any more objection to Luna than they had to Zach. Zach had even smiled and joked that he was glad he wasn’t the “youngest” anymore. Harry had stared at him in horror, and Zach had quickly changed the subject.

When Ron (who had agreed to be his witness again, because apparently marrying Luna wasn’t as weird as marrying a Malfoy) had pronounced the marriage sealed and Harry had leaned down to kiss Luna, she threw her arms around his neck and snogged him hard. Harry had to brace his hands on her shoulders to keep himself from falling over, and then he was having a reaction inappropriate to a public place again.

At least Luna got swarmed by the rest of his spouses after that, with Astoria kissing her cheek and the others shaking her hand, and Harry got to stand there with his eyes shut and will himself _down_.

“You needn’t do that on our account, you know.”

Harry started and opened his eyes. Theodore was standing in front of him, staring at his groin with bright grey eyes. Harry flushed and turned a little so that he didn’t have to see it. “I’m sorry. It’s good of you to say. But I know why you married me, and—”

“Do you? Do you really?”

Harry gaped at him. “Of course I do. You told me yourself. Your father would have imprisoned you.”

A shadow drifted across Theodore’s face, and he nodded. “But, Harry, you must realize that I didn’t have _any_ objections to the idea of what a marriage like this would entail. None. At all.”

He was staring at Harry with big, hopeful eyes, and Harry had the definite feeling he was missing something, but he didn’t know what it was. He turned back to Luna, who was nodding in response to something Astoria had said. Maybe they would both enjoy having a female friend, Harry thought, a little desperately. Outside of Ginny, he didn’t think Luna had any, and Ginny was out of the country doing travel and training for Quidditch most of the time now.

“What time do you want to have sex tonight?” Luna asked him.

Somehow, Harry got away with an inarticulate answer.

*

“Is sex embarrassing?”

Luna had come to the bedroom that had been Harry’s alone since he renovated Grimmauld Place. She was standing in the doorway in those bright robes she’d worn to his wedding with Zach, not the ones that she’d worn to their wedding that day. And she was looking up at him with earnest eyes.

Harry rubbed his hair back from his forehead. Behind him, the fire crackled quietly on the hearth. Kreacher had reacted to Harry getting rid of the huge, hideous bed that had dominated the room before he moved in by replacing the modest hearth with one that stretched down the wall, and covering the stone floor with a sprawling black-and-red rug.

Harry tried not to imagine how Luna would look spread on that rug in front of the fire. He failed.

“Well, is it?”

And Luna was still waiting for an answer to her question. Harry sighed and turned back to face her. “I don’t think so.”

“Then why are you so embarrassed to have it with me? With your other spouses?” Luna ducked under his arm and looked around the room for a second. “I like your room. But it needs some bookshelves, like mine.”

“It’s not about embarrassment.” Harry turned to face her, aware that he was helplessly hard in his pants again. Luna’s back was visible where the fire lit her brilliant robes transparently instead of the sparks that sunlight created. Harry swallowed and glanced away.

“Then what is it about?”

“They came to me out of obligation. It would be wrong to take advantage of that by having sex with them.”

“Oh.” Luna looked at him again and reached back behind her neck with both hands, undoing the braid that had confined her pale hair. She did it without looking, even in the mirror that was over near the door of the bathroom, and Harry caught his breath as her hair tumbled in a shining veil around her. “But what if they wanted to have it?”

“They might say it, but they would still be feeling the pressure. None of us were friends before the weddings. Why would they possibly be attracted to me?”

“But you’re very attractive.” Luna smiled at him and reached down to unlace the blue ribbons that did up the bodice of her robes. “And if people are walking around without shirts and proclaiming that they’d like you inside them, why would you think it’s just obligation?”

“Wait, what?” Harry shook his head. “Blaise and Theodore just—like to walk around without shirts on. And Zach was making a joke when he said that bit about me being inside him.”

“Okay,” said Luna, although with a lifted eyebrow that conveyed cynical doubt in a way Harry had never thought she could. And then she undid her robes and stepped calmly out of them, and she was—

She was very, very naked underneath them. Harry spun to face the wall, his face so heated that for a second he had to check on the distance between him and the hearth.

“ _Luna_ ,” he hissed.

“Am I not pretty?”

“Of course you are.” Harry ran his hand through his hair and wondered if he was going to have to walk out of the room and down the stairs to the library or something. He honestly didn’t know if he could, with the ache in his groin spreading up his chest. “I just—I can’t take advantage of you like that.”

“I came into your room, and I took off my clothes. Why are you the one taking advantage of me?”

Harry shook his head and buried his head in his hands.

“Harry, look at me.”

Her voice had a touch of sadness that turned Harry around despite himself. And he tried his best to focus on her bright pink face, and her slight smile, and her big blue eyes that held a soft sheen. He hoped it wasn’t tears.

“I know what I want,” Luna said.

Harry swallowed and tried not to feel that the bulge in his throat was as big as the one between his legs. “Do you find sex embarrassing, Luna?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why?”

“I’ve never had it.”

Harry groaned softly. “Luna, that just makes me scared that I might hurt you.”

“It’s not like you’re going to charge over here and ram it in me, is it?” Luna took a step forwards and rested her hand on his chest. Harry started. He honestly hadn’t realized they were that close. “You’re not an Erumpent. They do that, you know.”

And Harry found he could laugh, and that laughter was an important part of easing him past his own hang-ups. He reached up, took Luna’s fingers, and brought them gently to his mouth as he kissed her fingertips one by one. “No, I’m not an Erumpent. And I’m not going to ram it in.”

“Then what are you going to do?”

Her eyes were brilliant, a challenge in ways that Harry hadn’t known a challenge could exist. He bent down and kissed her, gently, not the way he had in front of the other guests, because there he had been all about focusing on controlling his own temptation and not embarrassing Luna or himself or anyone else in the garden.

Now, he just kissed her to please her, and to ease his hunger.

Luna made the softest noise he’d ever heard from her, and parted her lips. And Harry kissed her harder, some of the pent-up temptation from the last few weeks surging out of him at last.

It turned out that it was a lot like he’d imagined it, and different at the same time. That would sound stupid if Harry ever had to say it aloud to anyone, but he didn’t have to say it aloud to anyone.

He laid Luna down on the big rug in front of the fireplace, and spent a long time kissing her between her legs. She liked that a lot. She _really_ liked it. And when her fingers were clenching in his hair to the point that it felt like she was going to rip out a chunk any second, Harry slid his tongue gently inside her and hummed.

She shrieked. Harry did not compare her to an Erumpent.

Her orgasm was a noisy thing, a big thing, bigger, it seemed, than her body. And when it was done, then Harry took off his clothes and let her look at him, and examined her body, too: the pink shadows where the firelight touched her breasts and the soft golden hair between her legs, the curve of her knees, her lips that shone with her breath, her grace as she stretched out unselfconsciously on the rug and reached for him.

“It’s pretty big,” she said in breathless contentment. “Thank you for not ramming it in.”

Harry moved towards her on his elbows, and knelt above her while Luna watched him with endless amusement, bright contentment. “I should probably prepare you some more,” he said, even though his body was practically vibrating with the need to be inside her.

“Why?” she asked, and reached down and gripped him. Harry gave a snort of shock. Luna eyed him. “You’re kind of like a Snorkack.”

“I thought…if this is your first time, and you’re not wet enough…”

“Virginity is only useful to attract unicorns,” Luna told him, and spread her legs further, and then she guided him into her far more forcefully than he would ever have done it. Harry clung to her, overwhelmed. “I have other ways of getting them to come to me. Now, come on, I want to see what the big deal is about being fucked.”

Harry snorted again in shock, but her body gripped him so tight that he was too pleased to do that for very long, and then he _was_ showing her, and Luna sat up and gripped his shoulders and adjusted the angle so she got to see other ways, and by the end Harry was flat on his back with Luna riding above him, her smile small but radiant.

And when she came, it was the best sensation Harry’d ever felt, those sheer flutters around his cock, and he came himself with a sigh that Luna luckily didn’t have the words to compare to anything. She lay down on his chest afterwards, curling up and whispering when Harry shifted a little.

“We should probably get into the bed,” he told her.

“No one else comes in here because you won’t believe they want you, so what does it matter if we’re on the bed or on the floor?”

Harry would have argued against that more if she wasn’t so warm, and if he didn’t touch something soft and intriguing every time he wrapped his arms around her with the thought of moving. And so he slept one wedding night in front of the fire, and if Kreacher shrieked in horror when he entered the bedroom in the morning, Harry didn’t hear him.

*

Harry woke early to a knock on the door. He knew it was early because the daylight coming in through the muffling shutters on the window in his bedroom was, well, still twilight. He sighed, gently pushed Luna aside, kissed her, endured her kitten-like sound of protest, and went over to open the door.

Only when it was swinging open did he realize that he didn’t have a shirt on. Or anything else. He stood behind the door and tried to look stern and dignified.

Draco was standing there, his face concerned. “My lord, Luna isn’t in her room.”

Then he stopped, and seemed to note Harry’s bare chest, and looked into the bedroom beyond Harry’s shoulder as if he could see Luna there, although Harry thought—or hoped—that nothing would be visible except some firelit shadows. His eyebrows crept slowly up to his forehead. “Ah.”

“I didn’t force her,” Harry said hastily, hoping Draco would take his word for it. “It was her idea.”

“It must have been.”

Harry blinked. There was an undercurrent of resentment in Draco’s voice, which he unfortunately knew well from Hogwarts, but hadn’t thought to hear from his husband now. “What do you mean?”’

“We’ve done everything but parade into your bedroom naked with a sign that says ‘Fuck us,’ and you still won’t take us to bed.”

Harry felt his jaw drop open. It was an odd experience, like he was outside his body and watching from somewhere up above, near the ceiling. “I—I married you to give you protection, or independence, or—other things. It would be a violation of ethics and everything that’s _good_ to take you to bed.”

Draco stepped towards him and cupped his cheek. Harry was glad that the bedroom door hid his reaction to that.

“We can marry you for those things, and still want you as a person,” Draco said. “I want you to fuck me. Astoria’s dreamed about sharing you with me. She told me that. Blaise and Theodore aren’t wandering around with bare chests because they just _like_ to. And Zach told me in _detail_ about how much he wants to suck you off.”

“He wouldn’t,” Harry said at once, because Zach was reserved, still, and he was—

If he had to deal with Draco wanting him in a fashion Harry hadn’t thought he ever could, still, he wouldn’t put up with Draco attributing his desires to others.

“He got drunk last night,” Draco said. “Really sobbing drunk, and confessed all his fears that he’s not good enough for you because you haven’t ordered him to kneel yet.”

Harry closed his eyes. “He said he wanted family. Not a lord.”

“He can have both. We could _all_ have both, if you weren’t so bloody self-righteous.”

“I can’t take adv—”

“Grow _up_ , Harry, and know where your cock’s welcome,” Draco snapped, and then grabbed him in a snog so fierce it was like a punch in the mouth. While he was still reeling from that, Draco nodded to him, said, “You know you’re welcome in my bedroom and Astoria’s this evening, Six,” and marched down the stairs.

Harry stood there and watched him go.

“I told you,” Luna said from behind him. “They all want to spend time in your bed. I don’t mind, I’ve had my turn, and it’s fair. Can you come and fuck me again before breakfast?”


	3. Chapter 3

“So, why are we here?”

Harry turned away from the fireplace mantel that he’d have liked to lean on until the flames consumed him. “Luna said something last night that I—maybe I was wrong about. Maybe she was right about. Maybe I’ve been ignoring for too long.”

They all looked at him from the middle of the great drawing room on the second floor of Grimmauld Place. Kreacher had redecorated this particular one in purple and black, and Harry thought Theodore’s pale face and Luna’s hair in particular shone against it. Blaise had a heavy black robe on as if he was cold, and Harry frowned. He’d _told_ Kreacher to add healing herbs to his food. Maybe he needed a Pepper-Up.

Draco and Astoria were sitting in heavy oak chairs next to each other, hands entwined. Harry bit his lip as he looked at them. If Draco hadn’t been the one to come and tell him that he and Astoria were thinking about _sharing_ Harry—shit, that memory made it hard to concentrate—than Harry would have been sure he was mistaken. They looked so content and in love as they sat there together. How could he come between them?

 _I’ll tell you how,_ said what sounded like an alien voice in his mind, and he pictured himself thrashing on the bed that he’d never slept with Luna on last night, Astoria riding above him like Luna had, Draco between his legs—

Harry had to avert his eyes, coughing, but not before he saw something like hope on Astoria’s face and Draco nodding significantly to him.

“Wrong about what?”

Zach was the one who had asked the first question, and he was asking this one. Harry turned to him with some relief. Zach just wanted someone who would care for him. That couldn’t make Harry have fantasies as dirty as he’d just done about Draco and Astoria.

Then he remembered the part about Zach telling Draco he wanted to suck Harry’s cock, and had to close his eyes.

“Harry, are you all right?”

It was Blaise, concerned but not as frantic as Zach might have sounded, and Harry took a deep breath and managed to open his eyes. “Yes, I’m fine, but like I said, I may have made a mistake. I need you to tell me if I did.”

“What mistake?” Theodore asked, shifting a little in his own chair. Harry didn’t dare glance at him. He’d had fantasies about Theodore several days longer than the rest of them. They’d make him _react_ in front of everyone.

_Several days longer._

Harry wanted to laugh like mad at the thought of that—that his life had changed so much in only a few weeks, with only a few days between the weddings—but he choked it back. They _would_ think he was mad if he started, because he wouldn’t be able to stop.

“He thought that he was being good and noble, and resisting the temptation to throw you on the bed and ram it in,” Luna said helpfully from her place near the fire. “He only slept with me because I stripped off my robes in front of him and he could pretend that he hadn’t married me out of some sense of _obligation._ He’s convinced that that’s what it is with the rest of you. That you don’t really want him.”

There was a long silence. Harry glared hard at Luna. She smiled back and sipped from a cup of tea Kreacher had brought her.

“It’s not fair.”

Harry pivoted to face Zach, burning with shame and yet also with relief. “I also agree. Just because Luna said that doesn’t mean you should feel obligated to sleep with me.”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Zach was scowling at Luna in a way that made Harry scramble to remember if he’d been among the students who bullied her when they were all at Hogwarts. It looked very _personal._ “Why did you sleep with her and not me? Or her and not the rest of us?”

Harry stared at him. Luna clucked her tongue and shook her head. “I don’t think you’re very attractive with your mouth open like that, Harry.”

Harry shut his mouth and dragged a hand over his face. “Because you married me for _protection,_ Zach. What kind of monster would I be if I tried to drag sex into it?”

“Someone who’s finally seen what we’ve been trying to tell him for days?” Blaise volunteered. “I tell you, it gets _cold_ wandering around without my shirt in the mornings. I thought you’d give in and shag me long before this. But if it’s finally out in the open, I can work with that.” He looked at Harry and licked his lips, then glanced around the drawing room. “What kind of schedule is fair to all of us and yet also fair to Harry? We don’t want to wear him out.”

Harry stared at him. “You can’t _want_ me.”

“He only has the one mirror in his room,” Draco told Blaise. “You can’t blame him.”

“Yes, I can.” Blaise folded his arms. “He _has_ to have noticed the way that most of us kissed him at our weddings and the way I practically swooned whenever he does wandless magic.”

“I thought you were getting a cold!”

Blaise leaned so far back that he was staring straight up at the ceiling, and then knocked his head gently against the back of the chair. Harry glared at him in silence. “Well, I _did._ ”

“We want you,” Astoria said. There was a blush on her cheeks, and Harry experienced a momentary relief that she at least wasn’t going to say it as openly as Draco and Luna had. But she did say, “That was another factor in marrying you, for the two of us, besides the opportunity to get out of Malfoy Manor. We would be happy to have you come to our bed. To come to yours. Both at a time and one at a time.” She ducked her head. “My lord.”

“But _why_?” Harry asked, and he hoped that he didn’t sound as plaintive as the words felt in his head. “Draco, we loathed each other in Hogwarts. Astoria, I didn’t know you at all. Zach, we didn’t get along. Theodore and Blaise—”

“You didn’t know us, I know, except as Slytherins who irritated you,” Theodore said quietly. “But you’re forgetting _our_ side of the equation, Harry.”

“What do you mean?”

“ _Some_ of us,” said Theodore, with a quick glance at Draco that made Draco turn his head away, “could see you as more than an annoying Gryffindor. We could admire your skill on a broom, and your magic. And when you won the war, that admiration only grew. I would have happily gone to bed with you when we were back at Hogwarts for our eighth year, but you didn’t notice anyone except Weasley then.”

Harry shrugged. He wasn’t going to apologize for his fling with Ginny, “fling” though it had turned out to be. They’d only drifted apart because Harry had wanted to become an Auror and Ginny had wanted to play Quidditch, and those careers required so much intense concentration that they didn’t have much left for each other.

Besides, Harry had wanted someone who would be home every night, since he didn’t always know if he would be.

That jolted him into another realization. He’d been coming home every night for the past weeks and shutting his front door with a deep jolt of satisfaction.

And the satisfaction had only grown deeper as more people asked to marry into his—family, he thought of it that way. He could sense all their different gifts, their auras.

Stepping into a full house sowed contentment in his bones.

Harry wondered if he should admit that or not. But he had better things to concentrate on, so he said as gently as he could, “You didn’t have to ask me to marry you, though. I probably would have been open to most of you just coming to me and asking…”

He trailed off. Theodore was smirking at him. “Asking you to please throw us on the bed and fuck us? You haven’t done that even though we _are_ legally married now. And you wouldn’t have wanted to interfere in Draco and Astoria’s bond. And it might have ended up a fling like you had with Weasley.”

Harry hesitated, but he had to ask. “And would that have been so bad?”

Theodore sat down abruptly and glanced around. “Who wants to explain it to him? I’m out of patience.”

Harry narrowed his eyes, but Luna spoke up and saved the day again. “We want something permanent with you, Harry. We want protection and friends and sex and being all together. Maybe even more literally than just being friends.” She rolled over on her stomach and looked with interest at Astoria.

Harry hadn’t even finished blushing when Zach blurted out exactly, “Yes! That’s it! I told you why I wanted to be here, Harry.” He was flushing himself, probably because he thought that the details about his family were a bit too intimate yet to repeat in front of the others, but his eyes remained steady. “Why do you think I’d want to give that up, even when the immediate danger passes?”

“Did any of you lie about why you wanted to be here?” Harry asked.

His voice had gone low. His spouses exchanged glances. Then Draco shook his head. “No. At least, Astoria and I didn’t. I didn’t find Mother and Father’s interference and insinuations as irritating as she did, but I did want to get away from them.”

“You _know_ I didn’t lie,” Zach said.

Harry had to nod. The breaking of Zach’s mask had been too violent for that. “I know.”

“I was really in danger from Umbridge,” Blaise said. “And you’re—your _power,_ Harry. Merlin, I want to feel you above me, fucking in, looking down at me and—”

“ _Blaise._ ”

Blaise shot him a smile so filthy that Harry had to stiffen all his muscles so he wouldn’t make an unfortunate movement. “I didn’t lie,” Blaise added. “But it’s true that I might not have thought of this if Theodore hadn’t already married you.”

“You know I was telling the truth,” Luna said, and smiled at him from where she was lying so that her face was upside-down. “I just don’t know why all the others tried to manipulate their way around you instead of approaching you with what they wanted.”

“We already said that,” Theodore muttered. “Because he would have had a nice little fling with us, and not given us even half of what we wanted.”

Harry turned to face Theodore, the one who in some ways had started all of this. “I know that you weren’t lying,” he said quietly. “The way you talked about your father conveyed real fear. But—why in the world did you want to marry me instead of just asking for a place under the Fidelius and my protection?” Now that he thought about it, he should have been more suspicious about the amount of research Theodore had done on the ancient law that the conqueror of a Dark Lord could have multiple spouses.

“Hasn’t anyone else convinced you yet?”

“You all have your own reasons. And I thought yours hinged solely on fear of your father.”

“I already _did_ tell you that I would have fucked you in our eighth year—”

“Which was seven years ago.”

Theodore tilted his head in recognition, and leaned forwards in his chair. Harry found himself bracing, which was weird. He didn’t think Theodore was a danger to him. And even if he had wanted to stab Harry in the stomach after getting close or something, then Harry’s wandless magic, drifting around him, would have flared like it did with the dog-man and thrown him across the room.

Harry’s cock suggested some of the ways that Theodore could get close to him that would involve only a gentler kind of stabbing. Harry told his cock to shut up.

“Sometimes attraction doesn’t fade with the passing years,” Theodore murmured. “Sometimes it only deepens and grows, and it turns out that your younger self knew more than your older one.” He raked his gaze up and down Harry’s body and shivered like Blaise tended to for a second. “Sure, you had your fame, but that rather obscured most people’s view of you. It was after the war, when you didn’t feel like you had to live up to your fame or fight a Dark wizard trying to destroy you anymore, that I really _saw_ you.

“And I realized that you were loyal to people not because you needed allies or because that was what was expected of you as a Gryffindor, but because that was the kind of person you were. You’re powerful, you’re honorable—”

“So honorable it’s kind of annoying,” muttered Draco.

Theodore glared at him. “Shut up. You can tell him why you fell for him later. It’s my turn right now.”

Draco slumped lower in his chair, face red. Astoria put her hand on his shoulder and said in her clear voice, “Yes, but it’s our turn at six tonight.”

“Why?” Blaise demanded. “Why is it _their_ turn then? That’s not fair.”

“We claimed it,” Draco said. “Deal with it.”

“When is it my turn?” Zach asked, frowning. “Tomorrow? I don’t mind that, but I think we should discuss it instead of just assuming.”

“Wait,” Harry tried to say, but Luna was talking.

“Is this the way they handle it in houses with a lot of marriages? We make a schedule? I don’t think it should be so automatic. Perhaps we can set it by phases of the moon. That would give Harry some time to recover in between.”

“I was _trying_ ,” Theodore said in a strained voice, “to tell him something.”

“Yes, yes, very romantic, but this is more important, now that he’s finally woken up and understood that we _do_ want to shag him,” Blaise said, and turned to Draco, who was smirking at him. “Is this like the time in sixth year all over again, Draco?”

Draco sniffed. “What time was that, Zabini? The time when I pleased more lovers than you in one night, or the time when I snatched up the woman you were _maybe sort of someday_ contemplating marrying?”

“What?” Astoria asked, a blush starting to life in her cheeks. “You—you wanted to marry me, Blaise?”

“It was a thought,” Blaise said, and gazed at her in a way that made Astoria glance down at her lap.

“A thought he didn’t act on fast enough.” Draco flicked a strand of hair over his shoulder. Even that, he found attractive, Harry realized in a little fit of despair. “I got the one girl you ever thought about marrying, Blaise. _And_ the first shag from our husband.”

“I mean, technically I had that,” Luna pointed out.

“Yes, but I _married_ him first,” Blaise retorted, and Draco’s eyes darkened.

Harry saw nothing for it, and coiled his power around him and then aimed a bolt at the ceiling. The drawing room shook, and dust drifted down from somewhere, which frankly amazed Harry, given how dedicated Kreacher was to cleaning now. He hoped he hadn’t conjured the dust to make it more dramatic. His magic did that sometimes, and frankly it was a bit embarrassing.

But then, so many things about this situation made him want to go hide in a hole and pull the hole in after him, he thought, as his spouses turned to stare at him in shock.

“Have you asked _me_ whether I want to shag _you_?” he asked.

“Oh, please, Harry, it’s been all over your face for ages,” Blaise said impatiently. “We married you for protection and independence and all the rest, sure. But—why _not_ share a bed? Theodore was explaining what we found appealing about you—”

“Yes, I was, _so if you could let me get back to that—_ ”

“Put in something about how his sense of honor is appealing, too,” Zach interjected, giving Harry a soft smile that he couldn’t help returning.

“Yes, but there’s so _much_ of it,” said Blaise, with a small pout.

“He also has a big cock,” Luna chimed in.

“Argh,” said Harry, or some noise that would probably be written that way, as he dragged his hands down his face.

“ _Anyway_ ,” said Theodore, repressively enough that everyone else actually fell silent. They were probably just startled, but Theodore spoke hastily. “Why _not_ have everything we wanted? I thought about approaching you and asking for marriage, but besides the fact that I knew other people wanted to marry you—”

“Oh, as if you’re that unselfish, Theo,” Draco snapped.

“If someone would let me get three words into a sentence before interrupting me,” Theodore said, “ _they might find_ that unselfishness is a very small part of my reasons.” He turned back to Harry, and Harry staggered where he leaned against mantel. He felt as if he were looking into Theodore’s eyes for the first time, as if they were back in the shadow of the oak tree where they’d married.

“I know you want a big family,” Theodore said softly. “I grew up almost alone in my parents’ house. My mother died when I was a baby. My father was kind to me when he thought he could control me, but he abandoned me entirely when the Dark Lord came back, and then when he wanted to control me, he…did what I told you about. Why _not_ have a big family? I enjoy it.”

“Yeah, if that was true, that little muscle beneath your eye wouldn’t be twitching,” Blaise said.

“I didn’t say I enjoyed _all_ the consequences of it,” Theodore said, frowning at him. Then he turned back to Harry with a sigh. “But some of them. And—I’ve been happier in the last two weeks than I ever have in my life.”

“Even though you’re in hiding from your father? Even though he could hurt you?” Harry glanced around. “Even though apparently you wanted to share my bed, and wandering up and down the corridor shirtless was the best way you could think to do it?”

“Next time,” Theodore said tightly, “I’ll be more direct.”

“Why was Luna the first one to ask me directly?”

“Some of us _did_. And you ignored us.” Blaise had his arms folded.

Harry swallowed. That was true. And now that he thought about it, now that he let himself _realize_ it, it had been entirely deliberate. He glanced away and found himself wishing the window showed a more interesting view so he could stare out of it.

“Harry? What is it?”

That was Astoria, her voice gentle. Harry glanced back at her and said what he was thinking before he could stop himself. Now that he knew they were serious, his spouses had been more than direct enough. The least he could do was be forthright himself. “I didn’t want to let myself take it seriously.”

“Why not?”

“I—I want it so much.” Harry closed his eyes. He couldn’t look at them right now, even if he was facing in the right direction. “The idea that I could have a house full of people who want me, who care for me?” He wasn’t going to speak of love yet. He had no idea if it was the right word. “And who care for each other?”

He actually didn’t know if that was true except in the case of Draco and Astoria, but it was irrelevant to the point he wanted to make. He took a shaky breath, and continued. “I wanted it. But I knew that if I let myself believe in it, I would be crushed when it ended.”

“Why should it end?” Theodore asked.

Harry did have to stare at him, because he remembered the reassurances Theodore had spun for him when he first brought the idea of the marriage to Harry. “You said, over and over, that it would only last a year and a day. That’s the term of all the marriages. You said it so many times I was pretty sure that you were _relieved_ it would only last that long.”

“I said that over and over again because you looked like you were about to bolt,” Theodore said. “It was a way to entice you into the marriage. And, of course the rites we undertook only last a year and a day. But there’s no reason they can’t be renewed.”

“It’s a good thing, really,” said Blaise, and stretched in a way that made Harry look at him and let his eyes roam over Blaise’s muscles. Finally, the way Blaise apparently wanted. “We get to see how we deal with each other, and whether some people can keep their mouths shut about things that happened in sixth year that are frankly none of their business—”

“Whether we can tolerate people who are just jealous of what we managed to secure,” Draco said.

“Whether we can stand living in a house with this many people,” said Zach.

“Whether we all make friends,” Luna said brightly.

“Whether we still want the marriages at the end of the year and a day,” said Astoria. She was sitting upright in her chair and radiating what might be pure happiness. Harry didn’t know her well enough to say. “Really, it’s perfect when you think about it. We don’t have a permanent bond that might end in divorce. We can evaluate again and again.”

Harry locked his hands together behind his back. It was let them tremble in plain sight otherwise, and he didn’t think his spouses would like that. They were counting on him to be strong.

_Maybe. Maybe there’s all sorts of things they’ll like, that you’ll figure out together._

That actually didn’t sound much like the voice of his cock, but it was also one that Harry wasn’t inclined to listen to at the moment. He licked his lips and said, “I really need—it’s stupid, but I need to hear you say it. That you want, at least for now, to stay with me, and sleep with me, and you don’t need me to be as honorable as I was.”

“Please be dishonorable _all_ over me,” Blaise said, and spread his legs.

“I want you,” Theodore said. “Like I said, this is the happiest I’ve ever been in my life.”

“You just needed a little push.” Luna sounded kind.

“We have an appointment at six,” said Draco, and Astoria nodded right along with him, leaning her head against his shoulder and looking at Harry with a look that _now_ he could let himself recognize as hunger.

“And can I ask for one for five tomorrow?” Zach was nervous, but he smiled in a way that was probably intended to be flirtatious when Harry met his eyes.

Harry laughed, and a few of his spouses froze, but then they seemed to realize he wasn’t laughing _at_ them.

“Six it is,” he said to Draco and Astoria, and glanced at Zach. “Five it is.” He glanced at Theodore and Blaise. “If you—whenever you want to. If you really want me—I can’t tell you what kind of joy that is.”

It seemed he didn’t need to. From the smiles he was getting from all over the room, they felt their own version of it.

*

“Harry. Please come in.”

Harry studied Draco’s face for a second as he stepped into the bedroom Draco and Astoria had been sharing. For a moment, he wondered if Draco wanted to call this whole thing off. His hands were shaking and he was looking away from Harry as he went to stand by the fire.

“Don’t mind him, he’s just nervous,” Astoria said, from where she was sitting up in the middle of the bed. She was partially wrapped in a white nightgown that flickered as transparently as Luna’s robes with the fire behind them. Harry stood there and admired the curve of her breasts, and Astoria tucked her chin against her collarbone and smiled at him. “He’s never been with a man before.”

Harry started and turned back to Draco. That was something he’d assumed without thinking about it. Then again, if someone had asked him before yesterday, he would have thought Luna had had sex, too. “Do you need to wait? Or just watch?”

“Damn it,” Draco muttered to the fire, and turned back with a sigh. “No. I really want to be with you.”

“And he wants it one specific way,” Astoria tattled, unwinding her hair so that it hung in a long cascade down her back. Harry came forwards and lifted a curl of it with his fingertips, smelling it. It had a distinct apple smell that he supposed came from her shampoo.

“What specific way?” Harry asked.

Draco was silent, and so was Astoria. Harry sat down on the bed beside her and beckoned Draco closer. Draco walked over to him and stood there, worrying his lip with his teeth.

“Hey,” Harry said gently, looking up at him. “In a way, this is as new to me as to you.”

“You said that you’d been with both men and women before.”

“Sure. But never with two people at the same time. Of whatever combination.”

Draco’s eyes widened, and he turned to Astoria for a second, silently communing in the way that married couples sometimes did, in Harry’s experience.

_Probably the way that Theodore and I communicate, too._

Well, now that some things had been hashed out in the conversation earlier, Harry thought that he could hope for silent conversations with the rest of his spouses, too.

“Oh, dear.” Astoria was stroking her thigh with a rippling motion of her fingers. “Maybe what Draco wants isn’t going to be possible, then. We were more or less counting on you to take the lead. My lord.” She ducked her head. “We assumed that you were much more sexually experienced than either of us.”

“Once we cracked that damn noble armor,” Draco muttered.

Harry rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you whether I would be comfortable with it?”

Draco and Astoria exchanged glances and shrugs, followed by a decisive nod from Astoria. Draco turned to face Harry. “Astoria would like you to—to lick her,” he said, his cheeks turning so brilliant a red that Harry would have thought he was about to start yelling if it had happened in Hogwarts. “Luna told her you’re brilliant at it, evidently. And then—”

“Yes?” Harry kept his voice low, but let them hear the arousal in it. Then again, they could probably already see him stirring and lengthening.

“I’d like to fuck Astoria while you fuck me.”

Harry smiled slowly as he sat up. “I think that would be more than acceptable,” he said. “I really enjoy getting my mouth between a woman’s legs. And you have a magnificent arse, Draco. Now that we’re all grown-up and I can let myself appreciate it.”

Draco shuddered, but Harry thought that was far more about finally having got out the words and not having been rejected for it than Harry’s wording. “You’re pretty magnificent yourself,” he said, his eyes lingering on Harry’s erection.

“Now that we’re all part of a mutual admiration society,” Astoria said, leaning back expectantly, “are we going to start?”

For all her impatience, she didn’t appear to have expected it when Harry bent down, spread her legs, lifted up the nightgown, and licked her from her clit down.

Astoria shrieked, and then tried to clamp her legs around his head. Harry allowed it, but only part of the way. He did need to breathe, after all. And then he snaked his tongue out and began to lick her a lot more relentlessly than he’d licked Luna. He had the feeling that Astoria might like this better.

And if she didn’t, well, they could always talk about it.

The feeling of triumph that followed that thought was complemented by his triumph at the way Astoria struggled with her pleasure. She wanted it, Harry could feel that in the tightening and surging of her muscles, but at the same time, she seemed to think she had to be demure about it. Harry glanced up through her legs to see her stuffing her fist in her mouth, turning her head away with her cheeks flushed like autumn leaves.

Harry smiled and angled his tongue to make sure that he was lightly touching her clit, then hummed.

Astoria shrieked again. Draco came to sit on the bed next to her, naked, holding her hands away from her mouth as he kissed her palm.

“Come on, love, let yourself have this,” he whispered.

Or Harry thought he said that. He was rather busy burying his mouth deep and might have missed something.

Astoria took a few more moments to come apart around him. She was quiet when she did finally come, but Harry looked up at her as her muscles pulsed around his tongue and saw her lips parted, her chest lifting with one great breath. He licked her until she made a movement of discomfort, and then pulled back and smirked at her.

“You look _so_ self-satisfied right now,” she muttered, clenching her hand in Draco’s hair and peering down at Harry through the tangles of her own.

“I really enjoy that,” Harry confessed. He knelt up and began to undress. He’d worn just a set of loose robes and his pants, because he could walk barefoot around their own house if he wanted to and he knew he’d be getting naked when he arrived. “And I have the impression that you liked me sort of…diving in without discussing it.”

Astoria’s cheeks turned brighter pink than they had when she orgasmed. Draco chortled. “She does, but it’s not the sort of thing she discusses, herself.” He gave Harry a speculative look. “I didn’t expect you to be that insightful, Potter, given how long it took you to realize that we wanted you.”

“A lot of that was about my own hang-ups,” Harry said. Some of it was about the Dursleys and having trouble, even now, believing that someone would want to be close to him and love him for his own sake. But this wasn’t the right time or place to discuss that. “Now.” He stripped himself fully and gripped the base of his cock. “We’re all sitting around naked, but it occurs to me that I haven’t even kissed you except when we were getting married and when Draco kissed me at my door this morning. Can I kiss you?”

Astoria stared at him as if hypnotized. Harry licked his lips and found her wetness there. Oh, she liked that, too, did she?

“Yes,” Astoria said faintly.

Harry moved in and did it. This time, Astoria was bolder, grabbing him around the neck and hauling him closer. Harry was more than happy to lean in and really snog her, and by the time she released him, she was panting and her thighs were glistening with what Harry suspected wasn’t just spillover from him bringing her off. He winked at her and turned to face Draco.

He’d thought Draco might be hesitant, since he’d seemed to be holding back while Harry kissed Astoria, but the way he met Harry’s mouth said nothing like that. He was the one who bent back on the bed and dragged Harry down, spreading his legs so that they could grind their cocks together. Harry found a growl bubbling up in his throat. It was a while since he’d been with a bloke, and hell, when Draco rolled a little to the side and displayed that he _already_ had lubrication on his arse, Harry wanted inside him right that minute.

But he remembered what Luna had said about ramming it in, and how he didn’t want to be compared to an Erumpent the first time he made love to his new husband and wife. Harry pulled back and asked, as calmly as he could, “Draco, you said you wanted to be inside Astoria and you wanted me inside you?”

Draco blinked dazedly several times. Harry waved a hand in front of his nose. Draco leaped back into awareness and scowled at him. “You’re really a git.”

“Draco, you _said_ that you weren’t going to call him names in bed,” Astoria snapped.

“That was before he turned out to be stupidly good at kissing,” Draco said, and eyed Harry. “And even discussing this kind of thing, when you get right down to it. How can you be so good at _that_ , when you didn’t even know why we were all marrying you?”

Harry smiled and hoped that conveyed some of the happiness he felt just being in bed with them. From the way Draco fell silent, maybe it did.

“This is like a dream that I had one night and woke up and never stopped having,” Harry said. “To have a house full of people who really _do_ want to sleep with me, and by the way, they’d like to make a family, too? Even if they did marry me in a really weird way. Even if it had to do with my power and the status that I have as a conqueror of a Dark Lord, in some ways.” He tilted his head to the side and shrugged. “To have a chance to love all these people? It’s a _wonder_ , Draco. I’m more than willing to talk as long as we need to about it, and do whatever it takes to make you happy.”

“What would make _you_ happy?” Astoria asked. Draco looked too stunned to speak.

“Bringing you off the way I did,” Harry said. “Getting to watch both of you come. Being inside Draco.” He nudged his cock up against Draco’s entrance expressively.

“So we can do all that.” Astoria’s face was soft and gently flushed. “Come on, Draco.” She settled back and spread her legs again, and slid her fingers between her folds. Harry swallowed hard, and she glanced at him. “You’ll get your chance to be inside me, my lord. Right now, I think we ought to indulge our husband.”

“You are absolutely right,” Harry said gravely. “Draco, do you want me to show how you’d like it?”

Draco nodded. It seemed he got nonverbal when he was really deep in the throes of passion, which amused Harry more than he could say. Draco shuffled up on his knees towards Astoria, who eagerly hitched up her hips. When he sank into her, then Astoria gave a fluttering gasp and Draco finally made a sound, a guttural moan.

Harry eased up behind Draco and twisted his fingers for a second in the lubrication running down Draco’s arse and onto the top of his legs. It had dried a little since he’d put it on, and some of it looked to have rubbed off on the sheets, so Harry snapped his fingers and created some more, leaping onto his hand from nothingness. When he smeared it on, Draco turned to stare over his shoulder. Surprise warred with pleasure on his face.

“Wh—I didn’t realize you had your wand on you.”

“I don’t. That was wandless magic.” Harry created another snap of lubrication and smeared it over his cock, watching Draco’s eyes follow the motion as if magnetized.

“That is so bloody hot,” Draco moaned.

“I can feel you getting harder in me,” Astoria said. “Draco.” And a breath later, “Harry.”

“Then I suppose we shouldn’t keep either of you waiting, in case Draco comes,” Harry said, and eased himself into Draco gently.

It was tight enough that Harry was really grateful Draco had worked himself over with his fingers earlier—well, he must have if he’d put the oil inside himself, but Harry had to stop thinking about that image or _he_ would be the one coming earlier than he wanted to. He sank slowly into the warmth, a heat that threatened to fry his brains, while he slid his hands up and down Draco’s sides, over and over again, and Draco gasped and moaned and whispered that he was ready long before Harry felt ready, himself.

But at last he thought he should probably move or neither Draco nor Astoria would get the satisfaction they were due, and thrust gently. It was still hard enough to send Draco surging into Astoria, and they cried out in tandem. Harry groaned and rested his head on Draco’s back.

“Are you all right?”

“F-fucking incredible.” Draco’s voice was more sound than words. “Go on.”

“I’m fine,” Astoria said.

Harry nodded and began thrusting again, carefully, trying to guide Draco so that he would have to ability to fuck Astoria, too, if he wanted, or at least not hurt her if he didn’t want to move. From the look of rapture he caught on Astoria’s face as her hand slid between her legs, he was at least making it good for her.

But as the sex went on, his focus narrowed more and more to Draco. He said hardly anything, and that meant Harry had to keep his focus on him, to make sure he wasn’t missing some silent cue.

When Draco tensed all over and gave a massive sigh, Harry kissed his shoulder blades and began to fuck him harder. Draco had passed some invisible line in his personal world. Harry knew he could trust him more, now.

Draco reached backwards, groping. Harry caught his hand and guided it as low as he could, almost to the point, but not quite, where his cock was steadily plunging in and out of Draco.

“Almost there,” he whispered.

“ _Yeah_ ,” Draco said, with a deep grunt, and came, squeezing and twisting and—

Harry followed him in a rush of brilliance that completely overwhelmed his momentary guilt that Astoria might not have come, too. He grabbed Draco’s shoulders, leaving red fingernail marks, and gasped, “Bloody hell,” and felt all the tension that had been caused by the conversation earlier that day and fears that he might be hurting them now unwind and scythe through him. Pleasure griped him and wiped him up.

He came to lying on his side next to Draco, still buried in him, Draco petting him backwards. Astoria had drawn free and was lying and watching their tangle with a smug smile.

“Did you come?” Harry asked her, trying not to be embarrassed as a yawn as massive as Draco’s sigh immediately overwhelmed him.

“Twice,” Astoria said, extending her legs and wriggling her toes. “Once by my own hand, and once when Draco did. I always do.”

Harry smiled at her, sleepy and sated and overcome by the realization that they had at least a year to find out about this. Maybe longer, if Draco and Astoria wanted to stay. Harry was pretty sure he’d want to be married to them longer than that.

A soft snore puzzled him until he could turn his head and find Draco asleep beside him. He shook his head. “Does he always fall asleep that fast?”

“Yes.” Astoria crawled up the bed and then over and said, “Budge.” Harry did his best to move where she was pushing him, although it was hard when all his muscles felt like mud. Then she curled up partially between him and Draco, with her head resting on Draco’s hip, and sighed up from the soul.

“Pretty good?” Harry whispered.

Astoria was already asleep too, though, or didn’t hear, because she didn’t answer. Harry snorted. It was going to be trying having two spouses who could fall asleep that quickly. He never did.

But he came close, dozing off between them, while the fire on the hearth crackled and his happiness leaped and soared within him. There were good dreams.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this will not be the last part after all, due to this chapter growing much longer than I’d anticipated. “Covet” will be five chapters, and get its last part tomorrow.

“Late night?”

Harry flushed a little as he watched Blaise, who had wandered into the kitchen to fetch tea almost immediately after Harry did, study him. Harry had become aware that he had scratches on his own shoulders, and he didn’t even know where he’d got them. He’d come down to the kitchen shirtless, because why not make it a tradition?

But he arched his neck a little and said, “ _Good_ night.”

Blaise grinned. “Good.”

“No jealousy?” Harry asked. He’d wondered if that was something he’d need to deal with, with so many different personalities in the house and the fact Draco had alluded to that Blaise would have liked to date Astoria.

Blaise thought about it, then shook his head as he made his own tea. Kreacher appeared, gave them a mournful stare, and then popped away and came back with bacon and eggs. Blaise took them with the kind of absent nod that Kreacher seemed to like better than thanks, though Harry had never managed to stop himself from saying thank you yet.

“How much do you know about the way I grew up? I understand that you know something about Smith’s and Theodore’s.”

“A little about Draco’s, too,” Harry said as he swallowed his tea and gestured for Blaise to sit at the kitchen table across from him. “And Luna’s. I know that your mother has a certain reputation.”

“Say it, Potter, she kills her husbands.”

Harry hesitated. “Did she kill your father?”

“That’s something she’s never admitted to. If she did, then she covered that one up the best.” Blaise lifted his teacup in a way that made Harry think he was doing it to shelter his face. “Strange as it is, I don’t think she intended to get pregnant with me—by any of her husbands—but she kept his name and she sheltered me from rumors of his death and…I don’t think she wanted me, but once she had me, she loved me.”

“But.”

“But it was a lonely existence at best. I learned early on not to get too attached to anyone. Not my stepfathers. Not my friends, because my mother would pick me up and we would move on to some other place to escape the accusations. Not teachers, because we would leave them behind the same way.”

“Hogwarts must have been a sort of escape for you, then.” Kreacher once again appeared and treated Harry to mournful eyes, so Harry speared some bacon and ferried it to his plate.

Blaise nodded. “I had more stability than I’d ever had in my life. And pretty soon, I would have done anything to protect that. I didn’t always _like_ Draco and Astoria and Theodore and Pansy and the other Slytherins, but they were mine. Part of the most unchanging group of friends I’d ever had in my life. I would have killed to defend them. How can I be jealous of them? Particularly when it was Theodore who had the idea to do this in the first place, and Draco who woke you up.”

“What about Luna and Zach, though?”

“Zach told me something about what he went through. Not as bad as what I did, I’d say, but bad enough.” Blaise looked the other way, frowning. Then he smiled, which Harry could see clearly even with his face in profile. “And being jealous of Luna is…it doesn’t work.”

“Neither does resisting her,” Harry said wryly.

Blaise started to respond, but Harry whirled out of his chair as he felt something hit the wards. He’d felt magic like that once before, right before the Unspeakables tried to tie him down and had taken whatever chunk of his memory they’d taken.

“You _sure_ your co-workers don’t have a problem with you being here?” Harry growled as he shook his hand and his wand fell into it.

“Yes, of course.” Blaise’s eyes were wide. “What’s going on?”

“I won’t know for a minute.” Harry rushed out of the kitchen and up the stairs. Now he could feel two kinds of impacts on the wards: a steady pressure of the kind that was probably meant to take them down, and a quick, jabbing magic that felt familiar. But that made no sense, because it was very distinctive, and he surely would have felt—

Then his gaze fell on the scar on the back of his right hand, still there after all these years, and he understood.

“Umbridge is out there,” he said. “And I think she’s joined forces with the Unspeakables.”

“That really is impossible.” Blaise was striding behind him, trying in vain to see out the windows. With danger to the wards threatening, they would show nothing but the circling grey power of the shields. “We wouldn’t give her the time of day. She’s a joke among us.”

“Then somebody who learned magic from the Unspeakables.”

“That can’t be right, either. You know we keep it close. I suppose someone who might be a former Unspeakable, but—shit.”

Harry turned his attention away from the wards for a moment. They were holding well for right now. “What is it?”

“Theodore’s father,” Blaise said, his eyes bleak. “He was an Unspeakable at one time. Got kicked out for—I don’t know what, but it was bad. They seared his name into a doorway as a warning. It means he isn’t allowed to enter the Department of Mysteries under any circumstances.”

Harry relaxed. Very few things made him nervous, but the fucking Unspeakables did. It was actually better if he knew what he was facing, and it wasn’t them. “So Umbridge probably joined forces with Theodore’s father to come and get the both of you back.”

Blaise nodded. “I’d assume so. We didn’t keep quiet about our marriages.”

“I wouldn’t have wanted you to.” Harry closed his eyes and analyzed the pressure of the magic against the wards for a minute. “All right. If I do something that’s generally not something anyone in the Ministry knows about, will you have to tell your colleagues about it?”

“Unspeakables are all about secrets.” Blaise sounded smug. “And the wedding vows are generally interpreted as spouses being bound to keep each other’s secrets anyway.”

Harry nodded. Then he lifted his arms and hissed.

His magic flared around him the way it had the night the dog-man chased Zach. It flowed around his body for a second, pushing against the walls from the inside. Harry deliberately took a long step back in his mind, calming himself down. Otherwise, there was every chance that he would collapse Grimmauld Place on top of himself and his family.

“Holy shit,” Blaise blurted.

Harry opened his eyes, and smiled as he watched the divided magic turn into two gigantic black serpents. They were flowing and wavering back and forth as he looked at them, apparently made of mists and shadows. In truth, if he looked long enough into them, he would see gleaming red eyes and Sirius falling through the Veil, but he forced his attention away.

“ _The man who is the source of the Unspeakables’ magic and the woman who looks like a toad,_ ” he told them. “ _Traumatize them._ ”

The snakes dived through the floor and were gone. Harry leaned on the wards and forced them to dismiss the swirling grey that occupied the windows with a sharp motion of his hand. Then he could see into the street.

The street looked hazy under the influence of the Muggle-Repelling Charms that Umbridge and her cronies must have cast on it. Harry could see Belisarius Nott, his eyes fanatical and his hood falling down his neck, aiming his wand at the house. Umbridge stood not far from him, waving a quill in the air that must have been related to a Blood Quill. A few other hooded people stood behind them, probably some of the ones who owed Umbridge a debt and had come after Blaise.

“What’s going to happen next?” Blaise asked, coming up beside him. “Where did the snakes go?”

Harry tilted his head at the street just as the snakes erupted from it, one of them wrapping around Umbridge, one around Nott. Nott screamed for a sharp moment before he went absolutely still and his eyes rolled back in his head. Umbridge simply fainted.

Blaise frowned a little. “That’s all they get? That’s disappointing.”

“The snakes are made of nightmares,” Harry said. “They have the ability to seek out whatever the worst nightmare is of the person they’re embracing and force them to relive it. And they’re trapped like that until I _let_ them wake up.”

Blaise was staring at him, Harry could feel, but he didn’t look away from the snakes or their victims. Umbridge’s hooded companions were already taking long steps backwards, and probably on the verge of Apparating away. That was fine. Harry would get their magical signatures from the wards and send targeted letters to them warning them away from Blaise.

Blaise finally whispered, “Is there any way to see their nightmares?”

It was something no one had ever asked before, but then, Harry didn’t generally share the fact that he could do this with anyone. He nodded. “Sure.” He laid his hand on the glass pane of the window, fingers wide, and breathed between them.

His breath seemed to dissolve the window, although it was only happening along a sort of image continuum between him and the snakes. The images of the nightmares they were causing opened up in front of the window like pictures on the telly.

Umbridge was in the middle of a group of people that Harry took a moment to recognize, since they seemed to waver back and forth between the Wizengamot and a crowd of pure-bloods in robes as fine as the Malfoys’, all staring at her with righteous scorn. But no, they had definitely stabilized as the Wizengamot, and one of them took a step forwards and flung the broken pieces of her wand down in front of Umbridge.

“Since you are a half-blood,” said the woman in a voice like crystal bells, “by the laws that you helped pass, you are hereby exiled from the wizarding world.”

Harry raised his eyebrows. Umbridge was a half-blood? Of course, maybe that was just part of the nightmare.

But from the way Umbridge was weeping and cringing with her hands over her face, he thought it was probably true. And he had to admit he derived a certain amount of vicious satisfaction from watching her stumble backwards, and then turn and run from the imaginary chamber where the Wizengamot met.

Of course, another chamber just formed, and another humiliation took place within it. Harry smiled and turned to see what Theodore’s father was facing; it played next to the image of Umbridge’s dream, as if on a different screen.

Belisarius Nott stood with his back against a door that opened out onto a bridge. Gliding towards him was—the Grey Lady? Harry blinked. People could have all sorts of nightmares, of course, but he wouldn’t have thought Ravenclaw’s ghost would be part of a Death Eater’s dream. Particularly since Belisarius had been in Slytherin, from what Theodore had said.

Then he caught a glimpse of the woman’s face, and nearly choked. That was Theodore’s face, except for the depthless black eyes.

“I _killed_ you,” Belisarius breathed. “You’re _dead._ ”

Harry swallowed. Theodore had never said that his father had killed his mother. Maybe he didn’t know. He shot a glance at Blaise, who was tense and silent. Then he turned away as if he would rather watch Umbridge instead. In a way, Harry couldn’t blame him.

“You told everyone that I died bearing my child,” said the ghost. “You could have saved me, though, couldn’t you, Belisarius? If you had been a little faster with casting the spell that stopped the hemorrhage. But you stood there, and watched me _die_.” She halted, facing him, and her hands reached up and seemed to cup the sides of his face from a distance, sliding down, her fingers wavering. “Now you can experience it for yourself.”

Belisarius caught his breath. Whatever he was staring at now wasn’t visible to Harry, but it must have been horrific, because he began to scream, and scream, and scream.

And then he started to bleed from between his legs, the way his wife must have when she died. He grabbed at himself, but the blood continued to flow, and then something broke off and floated along with it that—

Harry turned away abruptly. He had enough cocks to look at. He didn’t need to see the way Theodore’s father imagined his own genitals.

“Are they going to wake up?” Blaise’s voice was a little strangled.

“When they get far enough away from the edge of the wards.” Harry blew between his fingers, and now he could see the view of the street as it really was, not through the nightmare-filled eyes of Umbridge and Belisarius. Umbridge’s co-conspirators had vanished completely. Harry chuckled.

“Can they even run?”

“Oh, yes.” Even as Harry watched, Umbridge scrambled around and ran away, sobbing. Her hand was feeling at her side for what was probably her wand. Harry hoped so, at least. The nightmare-snake looped itself after her, but faded as she crossed the edge of the Muggle-Repelling Charm. “I do think we should inform the Ministry that _we_ didn’t put up that huge charm that breaks the Statute of Secrecy right in the middle of the street.”

“Probably wise.”

Blaise sounded a little strangled, and Harry would have turned to face him, but Belisarius had decided to cast wildly in an attempt to end his nightmare, and Harry had to tune the wards to deflect the spell. At least the motion seemed to have snapped Belisarius enough out of the nightmare that he could run. He did, and the snake faded.

Harry sighed. “That ought to take care of _them_.”

He turned around, and Blaise tackled him to the floor.

Harry rolled as he did so, instinctively trying to throw Blaise off. His first thought was that some trace of Belisarius’s spell had got through after all, and he was controlling Blaise’s mind and using him as a weapon against Harry and the rest of the spouses in Grimmauld Place. But Blaise moaned and pressed against him, and Harry stopped as he realized that Blaise was hard.

He turned around and stared at him.

Blaise stared back, his lips parted enough to pant and his hips straining forwards. “I told you,” he breathed. “Your wandless magic gets me _hot_.”

“I reckon so,” Harry said, a little faintly. He was already rising to the occasion, as it were, but he did push Blaise back and then push him to the floor of the kitchen, his hands clasping Blaise’s wrists, his eyes carefully locked on his. “You’re sure about this? You want this even though you just watched me take two people apart?”

“No one else could have taken them apart so beautifully.” Blaise closed his eyes and seemed to concentrate for a moment. Harry waited, because he wouldn’t blame Blaise for having second thoughts—

And then Blaise’s clothes shimmered and disappeared. Harry’s breath escaped in a hiss that had nothing to do with Parseltongue as he reached down and stroked Blaise’s gleaming, sweaty dark skin. _Damn_.

“You didn’t mention that you could do wandless magic yourself.”

“Why should I? It’s a nice surprise.” Blaise concentrated again, and Harry visibly _saw_ his entrance slickening and loosening, and _shit_ , if he came all over the kitchen floor from watching his husband’s wandless magic Harry was never going to forgive himself. “Come on, then, you know you want to.”

Harry took a deep breath, seized the moment and obeyed his instincts the way he had when he’d suddenly plunged his head between Astoria’s legs, and slid roughly into Blaise.

And sure enough, Blaise didn’t shriek, and he didn’t compare Harry to an Erumpent, either. He gasped and grunted encouragingly, and wrapped his legs around Harry’s waist so tight that Harry was glad that all the blood possible was already in his erection, because otherwise it probably wouldn’t have got there. “Fuck _yeah_ , Harry.”

Harry grinned at him and then decided to follow another instinct and flicked his fingers at Blaise’s wrists. The invisible magical bonds that snapped into being were as firm as any steel cuffs, but wouldn’t chafe like them. They locked Blaise’s hands to the floor, and Blaise arched up with a full-body ripple and said, “Don’t come, _don’t come._ ”

Harry laughed and kissed him, knowing Blaise was telling himself that, not Harry. Harry, for his part, was beginning to move, his eyes watching Blaise’s face for the slightest sign of discomfort or hesitation.

It never came. Blaise was a babbler during sex, it seemed, and he broke up comments on Harry’s name and fucking prowess with words about “nightmares” and “enemies” and “never be afraid of Umbridge again” and “Unspeakables were crazy to try and hold you.”

Harry agreed with all of that, except maybe Blaise’s extravagant praise of Harry’s ability to fuck him, and that was at least nice to hear. He got his hands behind Blaise’s waist, holding him slightly off the floor, and began to slam him fast and thoroughly. Blaise had his eyes shut the entire time, lost in some world of his own, his hips moving nearly as fast as his mouth.

Harry came first, embarrassingly, but then, he was high on his own power and the feel of Blaise around him, hot as wandless magic, and the fact that he’d successfully kept his spouses safe. He reached out and heated his fingers with his power again, this time soft harmless flames of it, and even as he bucked and jerked through his orgasm, he linked his thumb and second finger together in a loop and slid them around Blaise’s cock.

Blaise screamed like he was falling and soaked Harry’s hand. Harry grabbed his waist and dragged him up to be kissed, and then cursed and hastily loosened the bonds that were still holding Blaise’s hands to the floor.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” he muttered, wincing from the arch of Blaise’s arms. The bonds snapped and vanished with a spark of blue.

Blaise opened his eyes, stared at him, and then snickered.

“What?” Harry demanded, dragging Blaise onto his lap and trying to ignore the uncomfortable twist of his own cock that was still buried in Blaise’s arse. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

“I know you didn’t.” Blaise stretched against him, as sleek as a lion. “But by now, you should have figured out that I like a little bit of pain.”

“A _little._ That looked like a lot.”

“I’ll tell you if it’s too much, Harry.” Blaise was suddenly cupping his chin, turning Harry’s head in a way that made Harry feel as if he was the weakest one here. “I’ll always tell you. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Harry swallowed and nodded.

Blaise smiled at him, and then it turned wicked. “Besides, you must have seen by now that it’s almost impossible to get me to shut up.”

Harry’s relieved laugh only cut off when Zach padded into the kitchen and stared at them for a second. Then he pointed at Blaise, said to Harry, “I want a turn,” and went to pick up a cup of the tea.

“With him or with me?” Blaise called out after Zach, languid and satisfied.

“Both.”

But Harry, studying Zach from behind, thought there was a tension encoded in his shoulders, and bit his own lip. He didn’t have time to sort it out now, with Zach obviously intent on making an exit from the kitchen as soon as possible. But he would make sure that he did it before their five-o’clock appointment tonight.

He never wanted any of his spouses to suffer—unless they enjoyed it.

It was really hard to drag himself away from Blaise and his eyes and his brilliant smile to go to work, but Harry could make sacrifices for the good of the people.

*

“Auror Potter.”

Harry raised his eyebrows a little. He’d been sitting in front of Gawain Robards’s desk for at least five minutes. Most of the time, the current Head Auror didn’t keep anyone waiting that long. He told people exactly what he thought of them. And while they didn’t exactly get along, Robards had never shown that he disliked Harry, or didn’t respect him.

“Sir?”

Robards stared a moment longer, then collapsed back behind his desk, his hands over his face. Harry blinked harder. That had _never_ happened before. Robards was so stoic most of the time that this was practically his version of a nervous breakdown.

“Would you mind telling me why there was an enormous Muggle-Repelling Charm in front of your house this morning?”

Harry shrugged a little. “You probably know that my husband Blaise Zabini sa’Potter got Dolores Umbridge angry at him, and she used her connections to try and persecute him. She hasn’t dared to attack him directly since he married me, but this morning she decided to change that. She showed up with some cronies of hers, and also the Death Eater Mr. Nott.”

Robards snapped his head up. “Your husband Nott?”

“No, his father. The one he sought my protection from,” Harry added, and let his voice cool. This was one of the places that he and Robards differed. Harry was as eager to hunt down former Death Eaters as any Auror, but he restricted that definition to “people with the Dark Mark actually on their arms,” while Robards extended it to mean “anyone even slightly connected to people who had the Dark Mark on their arms, including people who once shared a room with them.” “Evidently he thought that he could get through my wards alongside Umbridge, especially since he apparently knows a bit of magic from the Unspeakables’ domain.”

“Yes, he once trained with them.” Robards leaned forwards intently. “Is what he did enough to let us arrest him?”

“It depends on what you think of my response.”

“Which was, Auror?”

Harry managed to keep his body from straightening up like he was giving a report by reminding himself who he had been protecting, who was depending on him. “Snakes conjured from Parseltongue that wrapped around them and gave them their worst nightmares until they left.”

Robards blinked at him, then tilted slowly back in his chair. Harry wondered if he was going to get a blistering tongue-lashing, and then Robards said, “Why in the world would you think I had a problem with that?”

“Because Parseltongue is usually considered a Dark Art, and you have enough problems with the Death Eaters.”

“I admit I think you’re mental for marrying a Death Eater and a Death Eater’s wife and a Death Eater’s son,” Robards said casually. “But that isn’t the same as being one yourself. And the Dark Mark is different from Dark Arts, which is different again from Parseltongue. So. Do you think Umbridge or her cronies will return to bother you? What about Nott?”

Harry had to smile in spite of himself when he thought of the vision of Umbridge being humiliated in front of the Wizengamot and Nott confronting his dead wife. “No. They might try something else, but there’s no way that they’re going to come after me with full force the way they did before.”

“Then you accomplished what you set out to do, and without even killing anyone.” Robards shrugged in a way that made his chair creak, with the angle it was tilted at. “The mark of a successful Auror.”

Harry nodded. “Then is the Muggle-Repelling Charm and what I did to get rid of my enemies the only thing you wanted to talk to me about, sir?”

“No.” Robards rapped his fingers hard on the desk in front of him, and a charm that Harry hadn’t noticed disappeared with a soft pop. It had been covering a stack of parchment on the side of the desk. “Are you aware of the objections to your marriages?”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Yes, sir. The _Prophet_ has a story about it every morning, speculating about when it’ll come out that one of my spouses has been giving me a love potion or similar.”

Robards snorted. “I didn’t mean that rubbish. I meant the objections in the Ministry. Particularly from your—” He paused, rolling his shoulders as if looking for the right word. “Your colleagues.”

Harry stared. It was true that some of the Aurors had been near-enemies instead of best friends, but they’d always had his back and they’d maintained that stance even when he got involved in controversies outside the Ministry for not behaving the way the “Chosen One” was supposed to.

Now…

If he couldn’t trust them at his back, he couldn’t go on being an Auror.

He swallowed. “What do you want me to do about them, sir?”

“So you weren’t aware.”

Harry shook his head with cold squirming into his stomach. He _liked_ being an Auror. He enjoyed the process of investigation, tracking down Dark wizards and bringing them to face justice, or, occasionally, proving that the suspicions were wrong and there was no reason to suspect a particular person of dabbling in Dark Arts. He had never forgotten the lesson Snape had taught him, that his immediate conclusions could sometimes be wrong.

But he would give it up in an instant if it meant that he couldn’t trust his comrades not to leave him vulnerable. He wanted to come home to his spouses more than he wanted to go on being an Auror.

“Potter?”

Harry blinked and glanced up, catching Robards’s eye. He actually looked concerned, which made Harry blush. He couldn’t imagine how bad he must have looked to get that expression on Robards’s face. “Sorry, sir. How bad is it?”

“You weren’t aware.” Robards’s fingers did another intricate tap-roll on top of the pile of parchment. “What is your reaction? What do you think is going to happen now?”

Harry squared his shoulders. “I think that sooner or later, someone is going to be a little slow when a Dark wizard tries to curse me. Or they’ll forget about a charm they knew that could have saved my life. They wouldn’t do it themselves—well, more than one or two,” he had to add, because Robards was as aware of anyone of tensions within the Auror ranks. He had moderated the two duels Harry had fought with people who simply wouldn’t shut up and stop challenging him, and he had made sure that the losers knew that they were no longer welcome in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. “But I can’t trust them. I’ll have to quit.”

Robards leaned forwards. “Really?”

Harry glared. This was probably about Draco, Astoria, and Theodore again. “Yes, sir. I’d rather live and enjoy life with my spouses. And I hope our children,” he added, because Robards had a deep, doubting expression on his face, as if the existence of Harry’s marriages wasn’t enough to convince him Harry would quit. “Better that than a few months, maybe a year, of waiting for someone to betray me.”

Robards sat back with a huff. “I’m disappointed, Potter.”

“Yeah, well, sir, it doesn’t much matter to me what you feel once I’m free of the badge—”

“No, Potter, I mean disappointed that you think I would _indulge_ this shit.” Robards smacked his hand on the desk hard enough beside the pile of parchment that it leaped.

Harry eyed it, then turned back to Robards. “If you never intended to indulge it, why did you ask me if I’d seen it? Sir.”

Robards leaned in. “Because I wanted to know if you had a plan to deal with it. And because you’re right, you can’t trust some of these bastards with your back.” His teeth flashed in a grin. “So we’re going to make sure that you don’t have to.”

“How, sir?” Harry wanted to hope, but authorities had never exactly had his back effectively before.

“Effective immediately,” Robards drawled, “I’m going to _remind_ everyone that the Wizengamot’s Marriage Expansions Act passed last year applies to all the employees in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, too.”

Harry’s eyes widened. Hermione had authored that act, and passed it through the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures; it had gone to the Wizengamot next, amidst fierce fighting. Harry and George and everyone else influential they knew, including reporters at the _Prophet_ who had done it as the price of an interview from Harry, had campaigned for it. It said that an employee of the Ministry couldn’t be sacked for marrying a goblin, a giant, a werewolf, any other magical creature or half-blooded magical creature, or someone whose family practiced Dark Arts. That last part had been in there mostly because some people had been sacked for marrying someone who’d had relatives among the Death Eaters, no matter how distant. The only major loophole in the law _did_ allow the Ministry to punish someone who had knowingly covered up or aided their spouse’s crimes.

At the time, Harry hadn’t thought it would really apply to him. He hadn’t had plans of marrying anyone then, much less a goblin or giant or Death Eater. But now, he began to grin, in a way that he suspected matched Robards’s slightly evil one.

“It’s the law,” Robards said happily. “And what are we tasked with enforcing?”

“The law.” Harry laughed because he couldn’t help it, but he also couldn’t help giving Robards a thoughtful glance. Robards noticed it and puffed up.

“What, Auror Potter?”

“I never had the impression that you liked me all that much, sir.”

Robards pointed a finger at him. “I’m not here to _like_ people, Auror. I’m here to make sure that we fulfill our function, and that we don’t lose good people because of nonsense like what’s in those parchments.” He slammed his hand down next to the stack again. “Some of which comes from jealousy, if I’m any judge.”

Harry blinked. “Jealousy?”

“You married a whole lot of people who you can shag any time you feel like it, and the others can’t object,” Robards said calmly. “Aurors and other people who didn’t defeat Dark Lords and who might want to marry more than one person can’t help but be jealous.”

“Maybe that should be in the next iteration of the Marriage Expansions Act, then,” Harry suggested. He could see why it hadn’t been in the first one. Hermione had set up the law from the beginning with the notion of protecting people who had creature blood or creature spouses, and the proviso about people from Dark families had only been added on later. But now, it seemed an obvious omission to Harry. “That people can marry multiple spouses. So they can leave mine alone.”

“Collaborate with Granger to write it, then,” Robards said, and waved his hand at Harry. “Later. For now, you have that case I assigned you that we _still_ haven’t found the principal on. I want the witch or wizard who put those poor saps under the Imperius, Auror Potter, not the poor saps who they used like puppets.”

Harry grinned. It was a novel sensation to know that someone in authority actually supported him, but he was going to use it for all it was worth. “Yes, sir.”

*

Harry shook his head and conjured water onto the cloth he was holding to clean the spaghetti sauce off his face. He was going to let Kreacher handle the walls.

Who would have known a food fight would result from Theodore simply questioning Draco’s hair color?

If Draco _did_ charm it blond, of course, Harry was going to have to go to the other end of the house to hide his laughter. But he really didn’t think so. He’d seen the identical golden hair between his legs last night, after all.

He knew his smile was self-satisfied, but he couldn’t help it.

“Harry?”

Harry glanced over his shoulder and grinned as he saw Zach come back into the kitchen. “Come to help me clean up?” His spouses had fled the scene of the crime when Kreacher had appeared and stared at them, the cowards.

“Oh. I can do that.” Zach drew his wand and cast a charm Harry didn’t know at the nearest explosion of sauce, which dried it in a second and peeled it off the wall as if it was no more than a sticky explosion of paste.

Harry blinked. “Well, if you want to do more than that—do you want to talk?”

Zach nodded and glanced in the other direction. “It’s almost five.”

“I know,” Harry said softly. “I was going to come to your bedroom. I wouldn’t expect you to have sex with me on the kitchen floor the way Blaise did this morning.” He’d remembered the tension in Zach’s shoulders from this morning, but he’d had no chance to talk to him about it privately before dinner.

“No, that’s not it.” Zach clenched his hands and shifted his balance.

“I can’t pretend that I’ll understand or notice everything you want to tell me right away,” Harry said, and walked up behind Zach to put his arms around him and lean his cheek against the middle of his back. Zach had gone stiff, and not in the good way. “But once you tell me, I am pretty good at dealing with it.”

“All right. I—I heard both Luna and Draco and Astoria talking about what you’re like in bed.”

“And you saw it with Blaise. Right.” Harry stepped back a little, but left his arms linked around Zach’s waist. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t—I don’t want it to be like it was with them.”

“Rough?”

“No.” Zach turned around, swallowing, his eyes aimed over Harry’s shoulder. “I don’t think I’m ready to, or even want.” He stopped helplessly. Harry held him in silence, and Zach finally looked at him. “I’m not good at this.”

“I’m not good at it, either,” Harry replied. “I’m plunging into this and going ahead, but it’s new to everyone. No matter _what_ Theodore thinks he planned or encouraged,” he added, because Theodore had been getting on his nerves about that during dinner.

Zach lowered his gaze this time. “So I should just go ahead and say it, then.”

“Probably,” Harry said. “I think we’re confirmed that I’m not good at guessing.”

Zach nodded. “I don’t want you inside me. I just want to…” He closed his eyes.

“That’s perfectly fine.”

Zach opened one eye and looked at him, wary enough that Harry really wanted to go get his wand and then find the Smith family’s Floo address so he could explain a few things to them. “Really?”

“Yes,” Harry said. “I enjoy sex, Zach, a _lot._ All kinds.” He grinned as Zach blushed. He was fairer-skinned even than Draco, and probably hating it at the moment. “But I had the kind of sex I did with Blaise and the others because it was the kind they asked for. What gets me off best is my partner’s pleasure. So we’ll do what you want.”

“Oh, thank Merlin,” Zach blurted, and then flushed. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry about it. Just guide me as to what you want.” Harry ran his hands gently up and down Zach’s arms. He thought he could guess part of it, based on what Draco had said about Zach’s drunken complaining, but he also thought it wasn’t a great idea to reveal that Draco had told him about that. “What is it you want?”

Zach swallowed. “To suck you off.”

“I think we can manage that.”

“And to have you…”

This time, Zach appeared truly incapable of saying it. Harry finished the sentence for him. “To have me suck you off?”

“I’ll understand if you think it’s inappropriate,” Zach muttered, looking off to the side.

“Why would I?”

“You’re my _lord_. I’m not supposed to imagine you going down on your knees for me.”

“I hate everything about being a lord except that it let me marry all of you, and it lets me protect all of you.” Harry gently tapped Zach’s nose with one finger. “In the bedroom, we’re just Zach and Harry. Unless you want something different.”

“Not like this.” Zach’s ears were turning a brilliant red, but he kept speaking, with a courage that Harry wasn’t sure he could have matched. “It sounds stupid, but I think I fell in love with you the minute you defended me. I told you how rare that was.”

“Yeah.”

Harry leaned forwards and kissed Zach gently, insistently. He wasn’t going to react to the love confession, since Zach at the moment looked like he wished he hadn’t said it. And he didn’t know if he was in love with anyone he’d married yet.

But in the moment, he had something else to offer.

“Shall we go up to your room?”

And Zach changed in an instant into someone who was watching Harry with the same kind of hunger that he was slowly getting used to seeing from his spouses.

“Yes.”


	5. Chapter 5

Zach had been the only one so far to decorate his bedroom extensively, Harry saw when he stepped through the door. Although, to be fair, the only other one he’d been in for a long time was Draco and Astoria’s. He _had_ seen the gleam of what seemed to be pure sunlight, as from a portal, coming from under Luna’s door, and he had decided he wasn’t going to ask.

Zach had hung two mirrors up on either side of the room, but they were enchanted to show outdoor scenes: a slowly swaying forest, a gently rolling ocean, distant purple mountains, and a distant white desert that might have been a scene from the moon. Harry saw touches of green and blue in the wallpaper, too. And he’d enlarged the bed.

Zach started stripping off his robes as soon as they got into the room. Harry leaned forwards to kiss him once, and started undressing, too. He would let Zach guide everything.

When he glanced up, Zach had turned around, panting, pink, his cock curving up against his stomach. He looked almost defiant, as if waiting for Harry to find some fault with him. Harry simply met his gaze and then looked down at his erection, and smiled.

Zach breathed out. “That’s another reason I didn’t want you inside me,” he said. “Besides just not liking it.”

“What other reason, then?” Harry kicked his robe to make sure it was out of his way. _One_ time tripping over that when he was still with Ginny, and he always made sure it was in some corner. Waking up in St. Mungo’s with a concussion had been bad enough, and then he’d had to make up a story about fighting with someone who’d run off into the night.

(Ginny had been no help, laughing in a corner the way Ron had when Harry had said he was marrying the Malfoys).

“You’re bloody _huge._ ”

Harry turned back to Zach and away from the memories. “I meant it when I said we can do whatever you want,” he murmured.

“I know.” Zach paused a moment, then used his wand to cast a Cushioning Charm on the rug in front of his bed.

And knelt.

Harry took a long step forwards, his heart picking up speed the way it sometimes did before battle. He’d been telling the truth when he’d told Zach that he’d liked everything he’d done with his spouses so far, and lots of other things besides. It really _was_ his partner’s pleasure that got him off, every time.

But blowjobs were a particular favorite of his.

He reached out and skimmed his fingers down Zach’s cheek, then saw some tension in his jaw and decided that Zach probably liked different things than he did. Harry moved his arms and locked his hands together behind his back.

And _that_ made the heat leap to life in Zach’s eyes in a way it hadn’t so far.

He opened his mouth and waited there. Harry didn’t let his surprise show on his face, because he didn’t want to dismay Zach or put him off in any way. He shuffled slowly forwards instead, until his cock rested on the edge of Zach’s tongue.

Zach closed his eyes and sucked Harry in with an expression of bliss.

Harry groaned. “Hell, yes,” he said aloud, in a hiss that he knew was on the edge of Parseltongue.

He experienced a momentary flicker of doubt. If that upset Zach—

But no, Zach groaned and hummed and locked his lips tighter. Harry relaxed with a long sigh of bliss of his own, and rode the warmth, the way that Zach’s tongue thrust beneath him and lifted and curled around his shaft, and the tight pull of his cheeks.

And then he slid down Zach’s _throat._

Harry raised himself up on the very tips of his toes, fighting the temptation to thrust desperately. _Merlin._ Everywhere around him was a different kind of heat than he got when he was inside someone’s arse or vagina, a different kind of pulling and _sucking._ His breath was hurting his chest, it was coming so fast.

Zach reached out with one hand, smoothing down Harry’s thighs and around to his bollocks. He pulled and plucked them, rolling them with a skill Harry had never experienced. New jolts of pleasure rocked through his body, making his muscles tremble and scrambling his brains.

Harry felt himself lifting to come far before he’d thought he would. “Zach,” he whispered.

Zach seemed to take that as encouragement, not the warning Harry had meant it as. He used both hands now, one on Harry’s bollocks, one on the small part of the cock that wasn’t in his mouth, circling and teasing the base.

Harry stuffed his fist in his mouth and _came_. Zach’s name got garbled around the edge of his fingers anyway, and the scorching sensation that burned through him, hot and quick and fierce, wrung him out. He dropped to his feet and then to his knees, dragging his limp cock free, bracing his hands in front of himself to keep from falling on his face.

_Hot damn, he’s good._

He glanced up to find Zach licking his lips, every trace of come gone, his expression supremely self-satisfied. Harry grinned at him and leaned back, saying, “Wow.”

“That was amazing,” he added a second later, because Zach was still looking at him expectantly.

Zach laughed and sprawled beside Harry, more relaxed now than he’d been since the night he burst through the door of Grimmauld Place with the dog-man after him. “Thanks, Harry. I love doing that.” He paused, then shyly shifted to his back. “Could you get between my legs like this?”

Harry nodded and shuffled forwards, using his own Cushioning Charm. “Afraid that my manly prowess will put you on your back if you’re not already there?”

“No, I just like to watch you, and it’s easier this way.”

 _I could get used to this honest communication,_ Harry thought, and spent a moment licking around the inside of his mouth to get it wet enough. Zach might think Harry was big, but he was no slouch, either, and it had been a while since Harry had done this.

Taking him in was a pleasure all its own. Zach sucked in a breath that he didn’t release for endless moments, and his chest flushed in a wave of red that snaked down and joined up with the red of his cock. And his hips began to surge up.

Harry rode the motion easily, humming and wondering if Zach could sense his pleasure at getting his face fucked like this. He hadn’t wanted to thrust until Zach told him he could, because he hated overwhelming his partner. But he _loved_ overwhelming in return, and when he had to lift his head and gasp in a sharp breath, it was to see Zach’s eyes wide, staring, dark.

Harry returned to the task with even more enthusiasm. The taste of salt in his mouth was dense, and Zach’s cock was thickening, his thrusts harsh enough to invade Harry’s throat all on their own. Harry waited until he thought it wouldn’t choke him, and then he swallowed, hard, and again, and again, forcing himself to do it before he was ready.

Zach drummed a sharp fist on the rug, and came.

Harry relaxed his throat as he much as he could, and let come slide down until it was swallow or choke. He did, and sighed a little as Zach’s erection slid back until it was just barely resting in his mouth. Yes, _that_ was the way. That was something Harry enjoyed. And he liked the stronger taste of salt, like a whole mouthful of ocean, as he swallowed, too.

Zach rolled over to stare at him, eyes liquid.

Harry cupped his chin and kissed him, not sure whose taste was on his tongue now. It probably didn’t matter, not with both of them ruined for anything else this evening, panting next to each other on the rug.

“That was incredible,” Zach whispered.

“You’re incredible yourself.” Harry ducked his head and rubbed the top of it against Zach’s chin like a cat. Silly, maybe, but what he felt like doing right at the moment.

“No one’s ever…”

“Sucked you off? Enjoyed you sucking them off?” Harry leaned back, half-draped across Zach’s legs, and smiled. “That’s too bad. You’re really good, at both.”

Zach flushed and averted his eyes. “No, I mean, no one’s ever not held it against me that I don’t enjoy anal sex.”

Harry stared at him. Zach tensed, and Harry put a hand on his shoulder. “No, I believe you,” he said, not wanting Zach to start imagining who knew what. “It’s just incredible to me because it seems so _silly_. It’s just one kind of sex. They didn’t want to go to bed with you when they found out?”

Zach shook his head. “There was one bloke who was okay, but he was getting married and we didn’t stay together very long. And there were a few who didn’t like it, but that’s because they didn’t want to admit they were, you know, banging a bloke, and as long as I just sucked them off, they could pretend I was a girl.”

“Bloody waste.” Harry kissed Zach’s chin. “ _I_ think you’re a handsome bloke who’s really talented in bed.”

Zach laughed abruptly and shoved his shoulder. “Shut up, you berk, I’m trying to tell you something important.”

Harry nodded, but he made a mental note that Zach didn’t seem very accustomed to compliments. Harry would have to make sure he changed that. And if Zach wanted to sleep with any of the other spouses, Harry would have to make sure that they knew teasing wouldn’t be a good idea.

Well, mostly for the Slytherins. Luna would already know.

“I’m not ever really going to want that, Harry,” Zach confessed softly. “I wouldn’t want to be inside a woman, either. Although I’m so not attracted to women that I’ve only been with two, and luckily they both wanted my mouth and nothing else. I just—is this going to be a problem for you?”

“Why would it be?”

“Well, you really enjoyed being inside Blaise and Luna and Draco, from what they said. From what I saw.”

Harry shrugged. “Sure, but they wanted that. And just because I enjoy one kind of sex with one person doesn’t mean I want the same kind of sex with everyone. Any more than I want you to be Blaise or Luna or Draco when I’m with you. Or Astoria. Or Theodore.” For a moment, the thought flickered through his head that Theodore hadn’t approached him, but, well, he had no doubt Theodore would do that when he wanted to, just as he’d approached Harry about the marriage first. “You’re you. Unique. Zach.”

Zach closed his eyes and clenched down his teeth on his tongue. Harry kept still. He thought he might know the sort of emotions Zach was struggling with.

He’d sort of done the same, the first time he really _realized_ that he could find people to be with who didn’t want him because he was the Boy-Who-Lived.

Who didn’t want to reject him because he was the freak the Dursleys had always told him he was.

“I’m so lucky,” Zach whispered, his voice shaking.

“Everyone in this room and this house is,” Harry said firmly. “Do you want to get lucky again?”

“You’re ready to go _again_?”

“Magical strength has its perks.”

“Then, yeah,” Zach said, and kissed him hard enough to mark Harry’s lips with his teeth.

*

Harry paused for a second outside the carved doors that marked the chamber where the Minister’s “Council”—consisting of the Heads of the various Departments, as well as other important officials like the Head Auror—met on a regular basis. Then he let his magic flare in front of him, pressing the doors back so that they floated open in front of him.

Just in case anyone wanted to mistake how much magical power he was using because he hadn’t opened them with a boom, he let the Council hear the hinges straining.

Then he strode in.

The Council turned to face him. Kingsley’s face was welcoming, but nervous. Robards looked as inscrutable as ever. The Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, Aurelia Parkinson, sent him a sneer of dislike. The Head Unspeakable was hooded, so who knew what expression his or her face wore.

The Head of the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, Jacinda Burke, didn’t take her eyes from him, and didn’t appear impressed by the door trick. Then again, she had been mostly unimpressed with Harry since he had helped Hermione write the Marriage Expansions Act.

 _Of course she’s behind this pathetic attempt to bring me down._ Harry nodded to the other Department Heads, who he mostly had neutral relationships with and who were mostly unremarkable people, and walked over to pause near the chair that had been pulled away from the table.

“Oh, dear, it appears that someone left this here,” he said, and waved his hand, using his magic to push his chair into the space left between Kingsley and Robards. Then he sat down.

Harry tossed his head back, let his legs spread, and didn’t fold his arms. He was challenging them, everybody here. He wasn’t defensive, he wasn’t thinking about excuses, and he wasn’t fucking cowed.

_I’m going to defend my marriages. All of them._

And he wasn’t going to sit in front of them like a criminal or a naughty child while he did it.

“Auror Potter.” Burke’s voice lashed like the Werewolf Whip that was her signature spell. Harry might have disliked her for that alone. Her hair, heavy and dark and braided, slid down her neck as she turned towards him. “Please explain to us why you’ve married six people in the last month.”

“Last three weeks, actually.” Harry clucked his tongue. “If this is the level of detail that the inquiry is skimming over, I’m already prepared to be disappointed.”

“Harry,” Kingsley said, with a slight shake of his head.

“I must object to the informality on the Minister’s part,” said the Head Unspeakable, their voice echoing and prancing around lots of other echoes. Harry had learned to ignore that—he’d dealt with them often enough—but Kenneth McAndry, Head of the Department of Magical Games and Sports, leaped in his chair. “We are here to conduct a _formal_ inquiry on the wrongdoing of Harry Potter in marrying so many spouses.”

“Then by all means, let us have formality,” Harry said, and bared his teeth in what they were welcome to take as a grin if they liked. “That means that I should be referred to as _Auror_ Harry Potter, Head Unspeakable.”

There was a long silence, in which a few people at the table exchanged glances. Parkinson, of all people, broke it with an ostentatious clearing of her throat. “It’s not clear to me what laws Auror Potter has actually broken.”

Harry eyed her sideways. Her face was still full of dislike, but she was a stickler for procedure. He supposed that was the basis of her objection.

“The bigamy laws,” said Burke, with a snap of her fingers. “All of them.”

“I married Theodore Nott sa’Potter, Blaise Zabini sa’Potter, Draco Malfoy Potter, Astoria Malfoy Potter, Zacharias Smith sa’Potter, and Luna Lovegood sa’Potter under the Dark Lord Conqueror’s Exception Act of 1604,” said Harry smoothly. “I conducted the rites in accordance with the laws and didn’t break any of them.”

“There are no exceptions in the law for a married couple,” said Burke.

“I think you’ll find there are,” Harry said. “As long as the couple is a man and a woman, already married to each other, and both of them claim the conqueror of the Dark Lord as _their_ lord.” He was grateful that he’d read over the wording of the Act again and again before he’d married Draco and Astoria. “Draco and Astoria fit all those criteria.”

“There is no exception for someone with a Dark Mark.”

“Obviously—”

Burke sat up and smiled.

“Since the Dark Mark didn’t exist then.” Harry matched her stare for stare, and then turned to Kingsley and Robards. “Minister, Head Auror, what exactly have I been called here for? I checked _thoroughly_ before I married my spouses. It’s in accordance with all known laws, I performed the rites correctly, they live with me so they fulfill that criterion, and there’s no reason to believe that I am going to betray them or leave them. So why?”

Kingsley cleared his throat and glanced away from Harry. “It has been suggested that, since you married so many spouses all at once without any indication of showing that you wanted to before…”

“They think you’re under a love potion or the Imperius, Auror Potter,” Robards said. “And they’re worried about you somehow _staining_ the reputation of the Ministry.”

 _And they see a chance to get rid of a powerful ally for Hermione and someone who they think could be a challenger for their position,_ Harry thought, making sure he kept his face bland as his eyes traveled to Burke and Parkinson. _Not that Parkinson is going to do anything that would take me down unless she can do it strictly within the rules. Burke is the one to watch._

“Very well, then I’ll be checked.”

Burke’s trace of a smile disappeared. Parkinson just nodded. “In accordance with the laws. This is the Purging Draught.” She pushed a small crystal vial across the table to Harry.

Harry grimaced and drew his wand. Burke surged to her feet at once. “He’ll try to neutralize the antidote!” she shouted.

“No, I’m conjuring a bucket,” Harry said, raising his eyebrow a little. “I don’t know if you’ve seen someone suffering under the effects of a love potion antidote, but it purges _everything_ from the body if someone’s not actually under one. Then it would only purge the potion, through the pores instead of the mouth. I’m about to lose my breakfast and the headache potion I took this morning. Unless you want it to spill on the floor…”

“You’re only going to lose the love potion, because you’re under one.” Burke sat down with her arms crossed.

“Sure,” Harry sad, unimpressed, and conjured the bucket. Then he picked up the little crystal flask, swallowed the love potion antidote as quickly as he could—it tasted like old blood and dried bones—and bent over the bucket.

When he vomited, there were still recognizable chunks of food in there. Harry grimaced and closed his eyes. He couldn’t tell Kreacher about this, or he would pop into Harry’s office, kidnap him, and pop back into Grimmauld Place, where he would force-feed Harry and not let him up from the bed for days.

It was a sensation like taking a _Scourgify_ to the stomach, but it finished quickly, at least, within thirty seconds. There had been a time when Harry had taken a love potion antidote almost every day, because people kept sneaking the damn things into his Ministry meals. He sat back with a sigh, used a gentle Cleaning Charm and a Breath-Freshening Charm, and turned to face his accusers.

Burke’s face was slack with shock. Parkinson looked annoyed. Harry braced himself to be accused of making a mess on the floor, even though he hadn’t, but Parkinson turned to face Burke. “You _said_ that you were _sure_ he was acting under a love potion.”

“He has to be! No one normal marries more than one—”

“Excuse me?” Harry asked, and made his voice as cool as Hermione’s when she was asking someone why they would mistreat their house-elves. He leaned forwards a little, and Burke scooted her chair back. “I’m not _normal?_ Someone who enjoys the company of more than one person who all willingly live in the same house isn’t _normal_? But, of course, someone who wants to restrict the rights of werewolves and tell half-goblins they can’t marry wizards is.”

“You’re _mental_!” Burke pushed her chair back from the table some more. “To want to fuck more than one person, to be having orgies in the house, it’s a scandal the Ministry can’t tolerate!”

“Auror Potter.” Parkinson’s voice was tight with fury, but not at him, which Harry was glad of. “Will you submit to be checked for the Imperius Curse? I will cast the spell myself. I had intended to leave it up to someone else, but, well.” She flicked an eyelash at Burke, who had probably permanently alienated her by swearing in her presence.

“Yes, madam,” Harry said, and bowed his head as the cool magic from the Head of the DMLE’s wand flowed over him. He felt it as a much nicer sensation than the love potion antidote, although still probing. When Parkinson put her wand away, her lips were practically bloodless.

“He’s clear.” She turned to face Burke and the Head Unspeakable, which was a nice way of letting Harry know exactly who his enemies were. “I insist that you apologize to Auror Potter for wasting his time this morning, and interfering in his lawful marriages.”

“I will not,” Burke said through lips that sounded numb. “I can’t—it’s a _scandal._ ”

“ _I_ insist that we need to study Head Auror Potter more closely,” said the Head Unspeakable’s bouncing voice. “He’s repeatedly denied us the ability to examine him and see why he was able to defeat a Dark Lord whom no one else could slay. If we examine him, then I’m willing to endorse his marriages.”

“I’m not going to do that,” Harry said. “You mean you didn’t learn enough the last time you kidnapped me, tied me down, took three hours of time from my memory, and forced me to destroy one of the rooms in the Department of Mysteries in escaping?”

“ _What_?”

Parkinson’s voice was so shocked that Harry was surprised she was standing. Kingsley feigned a look of shock well, but he had known, as had Robards, who rose slowly to his feet. They had both told Harry to save that revelation for a time when he could use it. Trying to object to the Unspeakables before this had done nothing.

“Oh, yes,” Harry said, his eyes not moving from the Head Unspeakable’s still form. “They were so eager to talk to me that they couldn’t ask me questions or even ask to cast a few spells on me, the way you arranged to do today, Madam Parkinson. They kidnapped me and they paid the price.”

“Why didn’t you mention this before, Auror Potter?”

Harry turned to look at Parkinson, while keeping most of his magical attention on the Head Unspeakable. “I attempted to complain up the hierarchy of the Ministry, madam. But the Unspeakables told Minister Shacklebolt and Head Auror Robards to, I believe these were the words, fuck off. They said they were a totally independent department of the Ministry and didn’t need to obey the rules that were for the commoners.”

Parkinson turned in place to stare at the Head Unspeakable. The masked face turned slightly towards her. Parkinson held up her wand. “I demand that you fetch the Unspeakables who _examined_ Auror Potter and tell him how his memories can be restored.”

“No.”

“ _What_ did you say to me?”

“The Department of Mysteries has its mandate. We investigate the secrets of the universe. We are not under the purview of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, or the Ministry, or anything other than the responsibility of discovering secrets.” The Head Unspeakable leaned back in his seat a little. “And Auror Potter, as a mystery of the universe, is mine, and is going to come with me now.”

Harry had been expecting that, which was the only reason that he evaded the net of white light that came flying across the table at him.

 _Just a pretense, this whole thing about my marriages,_ he thought as he twisted to the side and his magic flared around him, lighting the net on fire and tearing it to pieces at the same time. _Just a pretext to get me in an enclosed space so that they could take me again._  
  
And if the Unspeakables captured him, Harry would never get to go home. Never see his spouses again. Never get to close the door behind him and feel their magic humming around him.

His anger joined his magic.

The last of the net disintegrated. Harry turned and gestured towards the Unspeakable, his desires speeding along his nerves faster than any spell could have sped down his wand. And the magic coruscated out of him, and _burned._

It burned the last of the cloak away. It burned the mask that the Head Unspeakable wore over their face, as they screamed in hoarse fear and pain. And it definitely burned the thing like a silver spear that tumbled out of their cloak, an artifact Harry recognized from his time in the Department of Mysteries. It had been used to pin the ropes around his legs, which was one reason he’d only managed to use his wandless magic to break free around his hands.

Harry stared at it, and the spear disintegrated, too.

Then he looked up at the ordinary man who was feeling for the tatters of his cloak and his obscuring magic, his wand twitching in his hand. Parkinson and the other people in the room were staring at Harry. Harry didn’t look at them. They had put up with this for _decades,_ the Unspeakables allowed to go around in obscurity, protected from the consequences of their own actions. Harry didn’t have to.

“What did you do?” the man whispered, ducking his head, probably because the sound of his own voice would no longer intimidate anyone.

“Revealed you,” Harry said. He waited a moment, to see if anyone else would say anything, and then added, “Michael Corner.”

The man cringed away from him. Harry stared at him. _Good God, what did Ginny ever find attractive in this berk?_

“You can’t…you can’t burn away my cloak like that, my mask. It’s not allowed. It’s not legal.” Corner was whispering hoarsely, as if it was the best approximation he could make of the echoing voice that would otherwise have been his. He ducked and scurried back into a corner, shivering all the while.

“You disgust me,” Harry said, and Corner flinched. He turned to stare at the other Department Heads in the office, and the Minister. “Are you going to let me leave? Or are you going to arrest me for burning this _rat_?”

“Of course we’re not going to arrest you,” Robards said. “Good God, man, get a grip. We’re not all like him.”

“No? But you tolerated his presence while he walked around masked and talked about being in _the service of the secrets of the universe._ ” Harry made his voice high and mocking, and watched Corner flinch again from the side of his eye. _Good_. “Burke was cooperating with him, for Merlin’s sake.”

He let his magic show, hovering around him, in an aura that formed a vaguely human-shaped golden figure. He released one jolt of his power, and let it shake the room, a localized earthquake. Everyone was staring at him now.

“I trust the Ministry will take the _proper_ steps when someone just tried to kidnap me and treat me like an experiment,” Harry said. “If they don’t, then I’ll kill him. Make no mistake. I’ll kill any Unspeakable who comes near my house, who tries to hurt me or my spouses. And anyone else.”

“I promise you, we will settle this within the law, Auror Potter.”

Parkinson’s voice was firm, and as little as Harry trusted her, her devotion to the law was firm. He eyed her once, nodded, and left.

No one stopped him, all the way to the lifts, or all the way to the Floo, even though he was leaving in the middle of the day. The soft, steady blaze in the air around him might have something to do with that.

 _Merlin,_ Harry thought as he hurled Floo powder into the fireplace. _I need to talk to Theodore._

*

But when he arrived in Grimmauld Place, he pulled up short, because having tea in the kitchen were Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy. Kreacher was hovering next to Narcissa’s chair, his eyes bright with adoration.

“Mr. Malfoy, Mrs. Malfoy,” Harry said, pulling his magic into his skin. Luckily, he had started to dim it even before he came through the fire, and so he thought it might pass as just a shower of sparks from the Floo.

“Mr. Potter.” Lucius put his teacup down on the table with a kind of fussy disdain and stared at him. “I hope you won’t mind us not addressing you as _lord_.”

“Why would you?” Harry took off his cloak and put it on the nearest hook, where Kreacher immediately snatched it free to carry somewhere else. He sat down in the chair across from them, and Kreacher brought him a cup of tea. “I’m not _your_ lord.”

Lucius flared his nostrils, but sat back when his wife made a little gesture. Presumably he thought she might have more luck.

He wasn’t wrong, Harry thought as he stared at Narcissa. She hadn’t wronged his friends personally the way Lucius had wronged Ginny and Hermione. And she had saved his life. And she loved Draco.

_Although not enough to stop bothering his wife._

Harry firmed his resolve. If they had come for the reason he thought they had, he was going to keep his temper under control, but he wasn’t going to give them what they wanted.

“We were surprised when our son and daughter-in-law sought your protection, Auror Potter,” Narcissa began, slow and musical and formal in a way that Harry couldn’t help thinking Aurelia Parkinson would have approved of. “There was no persecution on our part, nor intention to persecute, the way I understand most of your spouses were fleeing.”

“Luna wasn’t fleeting persecution,” Harry said pleasantly, and managed to hold in his sigh as a huge spread of biscuits and marzipan appeared in front of him. He wasn’t hungry. But Kreacher would blame himself if Harry looked like a bad host, so he picked up a small biscuit dotted with candied rose petals and chewed it slowly. “And Draco and Astoria _did_ tell me why they left your house.”

“Why?”

“Because they didn’t want to cause a scandal by living apart from you, but they couldn’t stand the way you kept telling Astoria that she liked Muggles too much.”

Lucius blinked. From the way Narcissa looked at him, she had actually never thought of that. And it seemed her husband hadn’t, either.

Harry sighed and resisted the temptation to rub his face. He was so bloody wound up, and he didn’t want to be here with his rude parents-in-law. But he also didn’t want to appear weak in front of them, and he would if he asked for ordinary consideration.

“She was saying that she would ask a half-blood to stand as godparent to her future children,” Narcissa said finally. “That would have caused much more of a scandal.”

Harry smiled at her. “Well, now her children will grow up in a house full of love and have plenty of parents who would die for them.”

It took them a long moment to get it. Harry treasured the moment, and stored it up to tease Draco with later. Draco hadn’t stopped making remarks about Harry’s obliviousness and how he should have known immediately that his spouses wanted him. Well, Harry was going to hit a few notes about the obliviousness of Draco’s immediate relatives.

“Her children are not growing up in this house!”

“Of course they are.” Harry sipped more of his tea and ate another biscuit. It wasn’t what he wanted, which was words and shelter with Theodore, but he was hungrier than he’d thought. “For as long as she wants to stay. And as long as they want to stay. And with as much protection as we can muster.”

“Anyone would think that you intended fathering some of my daughter-in-law’s children yourself.” Lucius had tightened his hand on his cane.

Harry snorted. “That’s up to Astoria. And maybe Draco,” he added, because they acted as a duo together so often that Astoria probably _would_ ask him before letting her contraception spells lapse with Harry, or anyone else in the house.

“I…this is _obscene._ ”

“No,” Harry said, losing his temper in a much more controlled way than he’d lost it with Corner and the Heads of Departments. He leaned forwards across the table. “This is a much better situation for Draco, Astoria, and their children. Not that they would have sought it if you hadn’t pushed and pushed and pushed, and decided that the best way to stop Astoria from seeking out this unknown half-blood was telling her she cared too much about Muggles. About _people._ Because compassion is the greatest fault that someone can have in your world, isn’t it? Not bigotry or stupidity or a taste for mass destruction. Compassion.

“You can march your bigoted little arses out of _my_ house, Mr. Malfoy, Mrs. Malfoy. Draco and Astoria will talk to you if they _want_ to. And I am going to defend them, and the whole of my family, including any of our future children, with all the magic in me.”

“You cannot talk to us this way!”

 _Fuck it._ Harry dropped the shields on his magic and let warmth leak out of his skin, flames sheathing him and rising up with a roar that meant the Malfoys could feel their heat, no matter how harmless they might be to Harry. The couple froze, and Narcissa dropped her teacup.

“Go away,” Harry said into the silence.

The Malfoys fled. Harry sat where he was, using his connection to the wards to track them up the stairs, through the entrance hall, and out the front door.

Only then did he sit back, shaking his head when Kreacher appeared. “You can take the biscuits and marzipan away, Kreacher.”

“Why did Master Harry kick the Mistress out?” Kreacher stared at him with drooping ears.

Harry nodded. He had to make this clear now, or Kreacher would probably let Narcissa back inside whenever she wanted to come. “Because they wanted Draco and Astoria to leave the house and give birth to their children in Malfoy Manor, Kreacher. Where you could never visit them. Where they could do whatever they wanted with the child, and threaten Draco and Astoria whenever they wanted.”

Kreacher’s ears stood up. “Threaten Master Draco and the lovely Mistress?”

Harry nodded again. “We have to protect Draco and Astoria. Our first loyalty has to be to them, and the people who live here, not someone who was born a Black. Can you do that?”

Kreacher drew himself up and bowed so deeply that Harry heard the impact of his nose with the floor. “Kreacher can do! Defend Master Draco and Mistress Astoria!” He paused. “And Kreacher be getting the nursery ready for the baby.”

Harry rolled his eyes as Kreacher disappeared, then took another sip of tea. At least the nursery was a separate room from the rest and Kreacher wouldn’t disturb anybody.

And if Kreacher started talking about the baby to Draco and Astoria, well, Harry would cross that bridge when he came to it.

“What happened at the Ministry?”

Harry started and looked up. Theodore was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his hands braced on the frame. His eyes were locked on Harry.

Harry swallowed and opened his mouth. He had calmed down a little since he’d stumbled into the house. He could hold the line. He could lie. He could tell Theodore that it was nothing really, that the Unspeakables had made a silly threat and he’d handled it.

But what he said was, “I need you.”

Theodore crossed the space between them and knelt down in front of Harry, his hands cupping Harry’s face. For the first time since they’d married, he’d dropped the masks. Harry didn’t know if he deserved the devotion that was shining in Theodore’s eyes.

That he’d somehow achieved from _afar._ Harry wouldn’t have blamed him if that devotion had changed after Theodore had started showing a house with him and seeing the real Harry. It wouldn’t be Theodore’s fault at all if the “perfect” picture had been damaged.

But somehow, it had endured.

“Please,” Harry whispered, “take me to bed.”

Theodore leaned in to kiss him, leaf-soft, and helped him out of the chair.

*

“What do you need?”

They were in Theodore’s room, a quiet one at the end of the expanded corridor that held all the bedrooms on the third floor. Harry had barely noticed that the purple-and-black decorating scheme was similar to the one in the large drawing room where he’d had the conversation with his spouses the other day. His whole attention was focused on Theodore, who was focused on him.

Harry hesitated. Theodore smiled at him and shook his head. “Believe me, Harry, if you want something I don’t want to give you, I’ll just tell you. Although there’s very little you could ask of me that I wouldn’t be willing to share with you.”

Harry nodded. Maybe later on he would find that disturbing and need to talk about it with Theodore, but right now, he would just ask.

“Please fuck me.”

Theodore’s eyes widened a little, and darkened. Then he nodded. “Of course,” he said, standing up and reaching towards the collar of his robes. “I wasn’t sure you would ever want that, but I would have offered eventually.”

“They had the Head Unspeakable waiting there,” Harry said, tearing at his own robes. The button near the top snapped, but he ignored that as he threw them aside. Repairing Charms were easy enough. “The fucking _Head Unspeakable._ He said that I was a _mystery of the universe_ and they had some fucking _right_ to me.”

Theodore’s face stilled. “I thought it was a meeting about our marriages.”

Harry had to pause to appreciate the weight of warmth in his stomach. _Our_ marriages. Theodore was ready to defend everyone else with him, even if he found some of them exasperating or—and this was only a guess, based on some of the expressions Harry had seen him wear—wished that he’d been Harry’s only spouse sometimes.

“That was just an excuse,” he said, when he came back to the present, and found Theodore waiting patiently for him. He bent down and tore his pants off, leaving himself slick and bobbing and hard. Theodore caught his breath at the sight of him, but Harry couldn’t stop talking. “They would have liked to have an excuse to discredit me if they could, and Hermione—”

“Why Granger?”

“She causes a lot of trouble for the Magical Creatures Department. If they could expel me from the Ministry or prove that I was committing some crime, it would taint her.”

“Of course. I should have thought of that myself.” Theodore gave a little shrug, and his robes fell off. Harry studied his pale skin, and felt himself stir. Theodore gave him a half-lidded smile. “But it was really just to get you into a room with the Head Unspeakable.”

“Yes. Although to give the other Department Heads credit, they didn’t know that. Kingsley and Robards really thought it was going to be my chance to defend our marriages and clear myself, I think.” Harry watched with desire that shook him as more and more of Theodore’s skin emerged. “The Head Unspeakable threw some net at me that looked like it was made of white light—”

“ _What_?”

Harry blinked. “I don’t know what it was, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I know.” Theodore was wide-eyed and furious, and Harry didn’t think he’d ever seen him like _that_ before, either. “He was going to tie your magic up inside your body so it couldn’t ever escape again, Harry. There’s no counter to that spell, no reversal. It ought to be an Unforgivable, but no one outside the Department of Mysteries can cast it. I only know it because of my father.” He closed his eyes. “He threatened me with it, more than enough.”

“Oh, Theodore.” Harry stepped towards him and let his fingers feather gently down Theodore’s cheek, towards his mouth.

Theodore took a sharp breath and opened his eyes. “Look at us, both naked and acting as though we want to weep instead of fuck.”

Harry licked his lips. “Well, I’d like to do both, but fucking first. Is it all right if I keep talking?”

“Of course.” Theodore smiled a little and steered Harry towards the bed, which didn’t seem to have changed from the usual Black production of ridiculously over-sized and over-frilled. “Although I have to admit, I plan on fucking you so hard that you might not have much breath left for talking by then.”

“That’s fine.” Harry dropped into the middle of the bed and clenched his hands together. When he pulled then apart, they were sticky with strands of lubricant.

Theodore didn’t seem to be as affected by the display of wandless magic as Blaise was, but he was smiling and his cock was a dusky purple as he knelt down next to Harry. “All that wandless magic earlier and you can still do this. I assume that you used wandless magic to defeat the Head Unspeakable, too?”

Harry snorted. “Burned his cloak and the other magic that was obscuring him right off. It was Michael Corner, if you can believe that. Maybe he wanted to capture me partially because we both used to date Ginny Weasley and there’s hard feelings from that, but maybe he really did believe all that stupid ‘mystery of the universe’ stuff.”

“You…burned all of that?”

Harry shot Theodore a cautious look. “Are you about to turn strange on me? Yes, I did.” To keep Theodore’s mind where it belonged, even if Harry _had_ been the one to bring it up, he lifted one dripping, glistening finger and reached down towards his arse.

Theodore leaned back on his hands and knees to watch, but he whispered, “The Unspeakables’ Cloaks are woven of the same stuff that Dementors’ cloaks are. I just never heard of anyone who could destroy one.”

Harry blinked. “Oh.” He shrugged. “Well, I suppose I should have got used to being freakish by now.” He slid his finger into his hole and arched, eyes closing. Damn, he had forgotten how good that felt.

Theodore seized his wrist. Harry looked up at him, wondering if he had changed his mind about fucking him.

But Theodore said, as calm and intent as if he was giving Harry instructions in cooking, “You are not a freak.”

Harry sighed. “I meant unusual. That’s all.” He spread his fingers and bucked in surprise as he touched his prostate. It really _had_ been a long time if he’d forgotten where the hell _that_ was. He hissed and spread his legs wider, working himself back and forth.

“There’s a reason that word was near the top of your mind.”

Harry hesitated, then took his hand out of himself and looked at Theodore. “My Muggle relatives used to call me a freak.”

“And what else did they do?”

Theodore’s voice was soft, an incantation. Harry found himself responding before he meant to, in words that he hadn’t meant to say. “They gave me lots of chores. Didn’t always feed me. Encouraged my cousin to beat me up.” He swallowed. “Keep me in a cupboard.”

Theodore stared at him, and the silence lengthened. Harry finally cast his eyes down, wondering if he should have brought this up at all. _Good choice for when you’re finally about to get the fucking you need, Harry._

Then Theodore said, “That’s why you were so reluctant to trust that we could want you back.”

And his fingers slipped down and gently entered where Harry’s hand had been just a few moments before, spreading and opening him.

“Yeah,” Harry said, his lips parting on the gentle gasps of a sigh. “Merlin, Theodore, right _there._ ”

“That’s why you cling with such loyalty to your friends and protect the people who depend on you. Because you never had anyone show you loyalty in the Muggle world, and no one protected you.” Theodore rose up on his knees and gripped his cock. His face was placid, except for his eyes, which were stormy.

Harry nodded to him and swiped a pillow from above him, sliding it under his arse. He had the feeling he was going to need it. “Yeah.”

Theodore slid in, and this time they both sighed. Harry rested his head back on the remaining pillows and gripped the sheets with splayed, trembling fingers. This was bloody _perfect._ This was what he’d needed.

“And you were never given what you wanted,” Theodore whispered. “Not even the most basic needs.” He set up the rhythm that Harry had known, without asking, he would set: gentle and relentless as moonrise.

“Yeah.” Harry closed his eyes. He didn’t think he was crying, hoped he wasn’t, thought Theodore would excuse it if it happened.

“I promise,” said Theodore, and his hands shifted up and snatched Harry’s hips, “I am going to give you _everything_ that you need.”

And he thrust, and thrust, and on the third thrust, he hit Harry’s prostate as hard as Harry’s fingers had.

Harry’s chest fluttered as he sucked in a harsh breath. He grunted, then he cried out. It was even longer than since the last time he’d got fucked that he’d felt he could be as vocal as he wanted when he was in bed with someone.

But Theodore was here.

Protecting him, just as Harry had protected him from his father.

“Keep going,” he stuttered, and Theodore was right, the simple rhythm took his breath from him.

But honestly, it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the pleasure blazing through him. It was subtle heat, and then it became sharp, and then it grew rougher as Theodore’s motions did, and then it gentled again, and the whole time, Harry knew that Theodore was watching his breath and his enjoyment as closely as Harry had watched those of his other partners.

Someone was here who would take care of him.

Harry let go.

Theodore’s startled breath was the only reason Harry opened his eyes. And he smiled a little as he watched the thicket of white trees growing up on the sides of the bed.

“Just ignore them,” he said, waving a hand.

“What _are_ they?”

“My magic grows hawthorn trees sometimes, when I feel really good.” Harry timed his breath to get all the words out. It was easier since Theodore had paused.

“ _Why_? And what happens to them?”

“Because they used to be associated with magic and Faerie? I don’t really know.” Harry relaxed back into the pillows. “And they’ll fall to dust when we’re finished.”

Theodore kept blinking at the hawthorn trees heavy with may blossom, and Harry cleared his throat. “Are you going to fuck me, or should I find someone else to finish the job?”

Theodore turned back to him, and the storm in his eyes had gone. There was only softness like starlight there.

“You’re wondrous,” Theodore said, and began to move again.

Harry grinned and said, “You’re just now realizing— _oh_.” Theodore had found his prostate and was pressing against it with short, heavy motions that were all the harder to ride with because the jolts of pleasure were so intense.

“Oh, no,” Theodore said, with a faint smile, and clenched his hands down so that his nails scored Harry’s ribs. “I knew it long ago.”

They didn’t talk after that, although Theodore seemed to divide his attention between Harry and the hawthorn trees. Harry might have made a joke about losing out his husband’s attention to a bunch of trees, but he was too breathless to.

Theodore finally held still and screwed Harry with slow, gyrating motions of his hips, and Harry grunted and came. Theodore let go as if he’d been afraid of coming until then, and followed him.

Harry wrapped his arms around Theodore when they were done, holding him close enough to feel heavy and sated and sticky and warm and smug. He flicked an eyebrow up when Theodore jumped as the hawthorn trees fell to dust. “I told you.”

Theodore caught his breath for a minute or so. Then he turned his head.

Harry’s hands went nerveless on Theodore’s sides. There _was_ love in his eyes, and the devotion Harry had seen earlier, and fierce happiness. The mere thought of trying to be worthy of those emotion frightened Harry far more than the Head Unspeakable had.

“We’ll be worthy of them together,” Theodore whispered.

Maybe that was more of that really good marital communication, or maybe Theodore had a bit of Legilimency talent he hadn’t mentioned to Harry. Not that it mattered. It was what Harry needed to hear right then, and he nodded and kissed his husband, rolling over a little. “Mind if I spend the night here?”

Theodore laughed softly. “Only you would ask.”

Harry stilled and glanced over his shoulder. Theodore shifted a little in response. “I mean it, Theodore. I’ll always ask. I never want to just assume.” He thought of adding that that was why he hadn’t asked to sleep with his spouses when they first married, because he didn’t want to assume, but it wasn’t the right time.

“I know,” Theodore said. “And I’m the luckiest man in the world.”

Harry laughed, then. “Except for the rest of the people in this house.”

“Maybe so.” Theodore rolled Harry to the side as he separated from him and picked up his wand. A Cleaning Charm gentler than most Harry had mastered—there were drawbacks to magical strength, too—took care of the mess in his arse, and then Theodore rearranged them. Harry realized that Theodore’s ear had come to rest right atop his heart, and he doubted it was a coincidence.

Harry stroked Theodore’s hair, and Theodore murmured, “But I am making one assumption.”

“What’s that?”

“That you haven’t told a lot of people about what happened with the Dursleys. That you haven’t moved on and healed from it.”

Harry licked his lips. “You’re right. I wanted to forget, honestly. And if I spread it around, I reckoned it was a weakness my enemies could use against me. Us, now.”

Theodore curled his hand around Harry’s wrist and looked up at him with soft, depthless grey eyes. “Promise that we’ll work together, with the others, on making it so that it’s not a weakness for you anymore?”

Harry tensed, then relaxed. Theodore wasn’t asking Harry to tell the story to a bunch of people he couldn’t trust. Just to work on it. He nodded. “I promise.”

“Good.” Theodore wrapped his arms more firmly around Harry and drifted off.

Harry didn’t last much longer, but he let his awareness expand beyond the bed, picking up the warm magic of the others. Zach was asleep and dreaming, surrounded by a golden corona of gentle power. Draco and Astoria were moving together in slow lovemaking, their rhythms obvious to Harry after the night he’d spent with them.

Luna was focused in a way that probably meant she was either reading or writing articles for the _Quibbler._ Blaise was out in the garden, still enough to be meditating, his magic too active to be asleep.

And Theodore was right here. With him.

Harry turned his head, let his lips rest against Theodore’s temple, and joined him in sleep, maintaining his connections with his other spouses as long as he could, utterly content and utterly committed to the life that was to come.

**The End.**


End file.
